of  California 
n  Regional 
y  Facility 


JL 


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MEMOIRS 


BY 

CHARLES  GODFREY   LELAND 

(HANS   BREITMANN) 


NEW    YORK 

D.    APPLETON    AND     COMPANY 
1893 


COPYRIGHT,  1893, 
BY  D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY. 


ELECTROTYPED  AND  PRINTED 
AT  THE  APPLETON  PRESS,  U.  S.  A. 


PREFACE. 


IT  happened  once  in  Boston,  in  the  year  1861  or  1802, 
that  I  was  at  a  dinner  of  the  Atlantic  Club,  such  as  was  held 
every  Saturday,  when  the  question  was  raised  as  to  whether 
any  man  had  ever  written  a  complete  and  candid  autobiog 
raphy.  Emerson,  who  was  seated  by  me  at  the  right,  sug 
gested  the  "Confessions"  of  Rousseau.  I  objected  that  it 
was  full  of  untruths,  and  that  for  plain  candour  it  was  sur 
passed  by  the  "  Life  of  Casanova."  Of  this  work  (regarding 
which  Carlyle  has  said,  "  Whosoever  has  looked  therein,  let 
him  wash  his  hands  and  be  unclean  until  even ")  neither 
Emerson  nor  Lowell,  nor  Palfrey  nor  Agassiz,  nor  any  of  the 
others  present  seemed  to  have  any  knowledge,  until  Dr. 
Holmes,  who  was  more  adventurous,  admitted  he  knew  some 
what  thereof.  Now,  as  I  had  read  it  thrice  through,  I  knew 
it  pretty  well.  I  reflected  on  this,  but  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  perhaps  the  great  reason  why  the  world  has  so  few  and 
frank  autobiographies  is  really  because  the  world  exacts  too 
much.  It  is  no  more  necessary  to  describe  everything  cynic 
ally  than  it  is  to  set  forth  all  our  petty  diseases  in  detail. 
There  are  many  influences  which,  independent  of  passion  or 
shame,  do  far  more  to  form  character. 

Acting  from  this  reflection,  I  wrote  this  book  with  no  in 
tention  that  it  should  be  published  ;  I  had,  indeed,  some  idea 
that  a  certain  friend  might  use  it  after  my  death  as  a  source 
whence  to  form  a  Life.  Therefore  I  wrote,  as  fully  and 
honestly  as  I  could,  everything  which  I  could  remember 


iv  PREFACE. 

which  had  made  me  what  I  am.  It  occurred  to  me  as  a 
leading  motive  that  a  century  or  two  hence  the  true  inner 
life  of  any  man  who  had  actually  lived  from  the  time  when 
railroads,  steamboats,  telegraphs,  gas,  percussion-caps,  ful 
minating  matches,  the  opera  and  omnibuses,  evolution  and 
socialism  were  quite  unknown  to  his  world,  into  the  modern 
age,  would  be  of  some  value.  So  I  described  my  childhood 
or  youth  exactly  as  I  recalled,  or  as  I  felt  it.  Such  a  book 
requires  very  merciful  allowance  from  humane  reviewers. 

It  seemed  to  me,  also,  that  though  I  have  not  lived  famil 
iarly  among  the  princes,  potentates,  and  powers  of  the  earth, 
yet  as  I  have  met  or  seen  or  corresponded  with  about  five 
hundred  of  the  three  thousand  set  down  in  "  Men  of  the 
Time,"  and  been  kindly  classed  among  them,  it  was  worth 
while  to  mention  my  meetings  with  many  of  them.  Had 
the  humblest  scribbler  of  the  age  of  Elizabeth  so  much  as 
mentioned  that  he  had  ever  exchanged  a  word  with,  or  even 
looked  at,  any  of  the  great  writers  of  his  time,  his  record 
would  now  be  read  with  avidity.  I  have  really  never  in  my 
life  run  after  such  men,  or  sought  to  make  their  acquaintance 
with  a  view  of  extending  my  list ;  all  that  I  can  tell  of  them, 
as  my  book  will  show,  has  been  the  result  of  chance.  But 
what  I  have  written  will  be  of  some  interest,  I  think — at  least 
"  in  the  dim  and  remote  future." 

I  had  laid  the  manuscript  by,  till  I  had  time  to  quite  for 
get  what  I  had  written,  when  I  unexpectedly  received  a  pro 
posal  to  write  my  memoirs.  I  then  read  over  my  work,  and 
determined  "  to  let  it  go,"  as  it  was.  It  seemed  to  me  that, 
with  all  its  faults,  it  fulfilled  the  requisition  of  Montaigne  in 
being  ung  livre  de  bonne  foye.  So  it  has  gone  forth  into 
print.  Jacta  est  alea. 

The  story  of  what  is  to  me  by  far  the  most  interesting 
period  of  my  life  remains  to  be  written.  This  embraces  an 
account  of  my  labour  for  many  years  in  introducing  Indus 
trial  Art  as  a  branch  of  education  in  schools,  my  life  in  Eng 
land  and  on  the  Continent  for  more  than  twenty  years,  my 


PREFACE.  v 

travels  in  Eussia  and  Egypt,  my  researches  among  Gypsies 
and  Algonkin  Indians,  my  part  in  Oriental  and  Folklore  and 
other  Congresses,  my  discovery  of  the  Shelta  or  Ogham  tongue 
in  Great  Britain,  and  the  long  and  very  strangely  adven 
turous  discoveries,  continued  for  five  years,  among  witches  in 
Italy,  which  resulted  in  the  discovery  that  all  the  names  of 
the  old  Etruscan  gods  are  still  remembered  by  the  peasantry 
of  the  Toscana  Ilomagna,  and  that  ceremonies  and  invoca 
tions  are  still  addressed  to  them.  All  this,  however,  is  still 
too  near  to  be  written  about.  But  it  may  perhaps  some  day 
form  a  second  series  of  reminiscences  if  the  present  volumes 
meet  with  public  favour. 

As  some  of  my  readers  (and  assuredly  a  great  many  of  the 
American)  will  find  these  volumes  wanting  in  personal  ad 
venture  and  lively  variety  of  experiences,  and  perhaps  dull 
as  regards  "  incidents,"  I  would  remind  them  that  it  is,  after 
all,  only  the  life  of  a  mere  literary  man  and  quiet,  humble 
scholar,  and  that  such  existences  are  seldom  very  dramatic. 
English  readers,  who  are  more  familiar  with  such  men  or 
literature,  will  be  less  exacting.  What  I  have  narrated  is 
nowhere  heightened  in  colour,  retouched  in  drawing,  or  made 
the  utmost  of  for  effect,  and  I  might  have  gone  much  further 
as  regards  my  experiences  in  politics  with  the  Continental 
Magazine,  and  during  my  connection  with  Colonel  Forney, 
or  life  in  the  West,  and  have  taken  the  whole,  not  more  from 
my  memory  than  from  the  testimony  of  others.  But  if  this 
work  be,  as  Germans  say,  at  first  too  subjective,  and  devoted 
too  much  to  mere  mental  development  by  aid  of  books,  the 
"  balance  "  to  come  of  my  life  will  be  found  to  differ  mate 
rially  from  it,  though  it  is  indeed  nowhere  in  any  passage  ex 
citing.  This  present  work  treats  of  my  infancy  in  Phila 
delphia,  with  some  note  of  the  quaint  and  beautiful  old 
Quaker  city  as  it  then  was,  and  many  of  its  inhabitants  who 
still  remembered  Colonial  times  and  Washington's  Republican 
Court ;  reminiscences  of  boyhood  in  New  England ;  my  revo 
lutionary  grandfathers  and  other  relatives,  and  such  men  as 


vi  PREFACE. 

the  last  survivor  of  the  Boston  Tea-party  (I  also  saw  the  last 
signer  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence) ;  an  account  of 
my  early  reading  ;  my  college  life  at  Princeton  ;  three  years 
in  Europe  passed  at  the  Universities  of  Heidelberg,  Munich, 
and  Paris,  in  what  was  emphatically  the  prime  of  their  quaint 
student-days  ;  an  account  of  my  barricade  experiences  of  the 
French  Kevolution  of  Forty-Eight,  of  which  I  missed  no 
chief  scene  ;  my  subsequent  life  in  America  as  lawyer,  man 
of  letters,  and  journalist ;  my  experiences  in  connection  with 
the  Civil  War,  and  my  work  in  the  advancement  of  the  sign 
ing  the  Emancipation  by  Abraham  Lincoln ;  recollections  of 
the  Oil  Region  when  the  oil  mania  was  at  its  height ;  a  win 
ter  on  the  frontier  in  the  debatable  land  (which  was  indeed 
not  devoid  of  strange  life,  though  I  say  it) ;  my  subsequent 
connection  for  three  years  with  Colonel  John  Forney,  during 
which  Grant's  election  was  certainly  carried  by  him,  and  in 
which,  as  he  declared,  I  "  had  been  his  right-hand  man ; " 
my  writing  of  sundry  books,  such  as  the  "  Breitmann  Bal 
lads,"  and  my  subsequent  life  in  Europe  to  the  year  1870. 

I  can  enumerate  in  my  memory  distinctly  half-a-dozen 
little-known  men  whom  I  have  known,  and  could  with  time 
recall  far  many  more,  compared  to  whose  lives  my  uneventful 
and  calm  career  has  been  as  that  of  the  mole  before  the 
eagle's.  Yet  not  one  of  their  lives  will  ever  be  written, 
which  is  certainly  a  pity.  The  practice  of  writing  real  auto 
biographies  is  rapidly  ceasing  in  this  our  age,  when  it  is  bad 
form  to  be  egoistic  or  to  talk  about  one's  self,  and  we  are 
almost  shocked  in  revising  those  chronicled  in  the  Causeries 
de  Lundi  of  Sainte-Beuve.  Nowadays  we  have  good  gossipy 
reminiscences  of  oilier  people,  in  which  the  writer  remains  as 
unseen  as  the  operator  of  a  Punch  exhibition  in  his  scliwassel 
box,  while  he  displays  his  puppets.  I  find  no  fault  with  this 
— a  chacun  sa  manure.  But  it  is  very  natural  under  such 
influences  that  men  whose  own  lives  are  full  of  and  inspired 
with  their  own  deeds  will  not  write  them  on  the  model  of 
Benvenuto  Cellini.  One  of  the  greatest  generals  of  modern 


PREFACE.  yji 

times,  Lord  Napier  of  Magdala,  told  me  that  he  believed  I 
was  the  only  person  to  whom  he  had  ever  fully  narrated  his 
experiences  of  the  siege  of  Lucknow.  He  seemed  to  be  sur 
prised  at  having  so  forgotten  himself.  In  ancient  Viking 
days  the  hero  made  his  debut  in  every  society  with  a  "  Me 
void,  mes  enfants  !  Listen  if  you  want  to  be  astonished ! " 
and  proceeded  to  tell  how  he  had  smashed  the  heads  of  kings, 
and  mashed  the  hearts  of  maidens,  and  done  great  deeds  all 
round.  It  was  bad  form — and  yet  we  should  never  have 
known  much  about  Eegner  Lodbrog  but  for  such  a  canticle. 
If  I,  in  this  work,  have  not  quite  effaced  myself,  as  good  taste 
demands,  let  it  be  remembered  that  if  I  had,  at  the  time  of 
writing,  distinctly  felt  that  it  would  be  printed  as  put  down, 
there  would,  most  certainly,  have  been  much  less  of  "  me  " 
visible,  and  the  dead-levelled  work  would  have  escaped  much 
possible  shot  of  censure.  It  was  a  little  in  a  spirit  of  defiant 
reaction  that  I  resolved  to  let  it  be  published  as  it  is,  and 
risk  the  chances.  As  Uncle  Toby  declared  that,  after  all,  a 
mother  must  in  some  kind  of  a  way  be  a  relation  to  her  own 
child,  so  it  still  appears  to  me  that  to  write  an  autobiography 
the  author  must  say  something  about  himself;  but  it  is  a 
great  and  very  popular  tour  de  force  to  quite  avoid  doing  this, 
and  all  art  of  late  years  has  run  to  merely  skilfully  overcom 
ing  difficulties  and  avoiding  interesting  motives  or  subjects. 
It  may  be,  therefore,  that  in  days  to  come,  my  book  will  be 
regarded  with  some  interest,  as  a  curious  relic  of  a  barbarous 
age,  and  written  in  a  style  long  passed  away — 

"  When  they  sat  with  ghosts  on  a  stormy  shore, 
And  spoke  in  a  tongue  which  men  speak  no  more ; 
Living  in  wild  and  wondrous  ways, 
In  the  ancient  giant  and  goblin  days." 

Once  in  my  younger  time,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  and 
intellectual  women  whom  I  ever  knew,  Madame  Anita  de 
Barrera — (Daniel  Webster  said  she  was  beautiful  enough  to 
redeem  a  whole  generation  of  blue-stockings  from  the  charge 
of  ugliness) — once  made  a  great  and  pathetic  fuss  to  me  about 


yiii  PREFACE. 

a  grey  hair  which  had  appeared  among  her  black  tresses. 
"  And  what  difference,"  I  said,  "  can  one  white  hair  make  to 
any  friend  ?  "  "  Well,"  she  replied,  "  I  thought  if  I  could 
not  awaken  any  other  feeling,  I  might  at  least  inspire  in  you 
veneration  for  old  age."  So  with  this  work  of  mine,  if  it 
please  in  naught  else,  it  may  still  gratify  some  who  love  to 
trace  the  footsteps  of  the  past,  and  listen  to  what  is  told  by 
one  who  lived  long  "  before  the  war." 

Now  for  a  last  word — which  involves  the  only  point  of 
any  importance  to  me  personally  in  this  preface — I  would 
say  that  there  will  be  certain  readers  who  will  perhaps  think 
that  I  have  exaggerated  my  life-work,  or  blown  my  own 
trumpet  too  loudly.  To  these  I  declare  in  plain  honesty,  that 
I  believe  there  have  been  or  are  in  the  United  States  thou 
sands  of  men  who  have  far  surpassed  me,  especially  as  re 
gards  services  to  the  country  during  the  Civil  War.  There 
were  leaders  in  war  and  diplomacy,  editors  and  soldiers  who 
sacrificed  their  lives,  to  whose  names  I  can  only  bow  in  rev 
erence  and  humility.  But  as  it  was  said  of  the  great  unknown 
who  passed  away — the  fortes  ante  Agamemnon — "  they  had 
no  poet,  and  they  died."  These  most  deserving  ones  have 
not  written  their  lives  or  set  themselves  forth,  "  and  so  they 
pass  into  oblivion  " — and  I  regret  it  with  all  my  soul.  But 
this  is  no  reason  why  those  who  did  something,  albeit  in 
lesser  degree,  should  not  chronicle  their  experiences  exactly 
as  they  appear  to  them,  and  it  is  not  in  human  nature  to 
require  a  man  to  depreciate  that  to  which  he  honestly  devoted 
all  his  energies.  Perhaps  it  never  yet  entered  into  the  heart 
of  man  to  conceive  how  much  has  really  been  done  by  every 
body. 

And  I  do  most  earnestly  and  solemnly  protest,  as  if  it 
were  my  last  word  in  life,  that  I  have  said  nothing  whatever 
as  regards  my  political  work  and  its  results  which  was  not 
seriously  said  at  the  time  by  many  far  greater  men  than  I,  so 
that  I  believe  I  have  not  the  least  exaggerated  in  any  trifle, 
even  unconsciously.  Thus  I  can  never  forget  the  deep  and 


PREFACE.  ix 

touching  sympathy  which  Henry  W.  Longfellow  expressed 
to  me  regarding  my  efforts  to  advance  Emancipation,  and 
how,  when  some  one  present  observed  that  perhaps  I  would 
irritate  the  Non-Abolition  Union  men,  the  poet  declared  em 
phatically,  "  But  it  is  a  great  idea  "  or  "  a  noble  work."  And 
Lowell,  Emerson,  and  George  W.  Curtis,  Bayard  Taylor,  and 
many  more,  spoke  to  the  same  effect.  .  And  what  they  said 
of  me  I  may  repeat  for  the  sake  of  History  and  of  Truth. 

The  present  work  describes  more  than  forty  years  of  life 
in  America,  and  it  is  therefore  the  American  reader  who  will 
be  chiefly  interested  in  it.  I  should  perhaps  have  mentioned 
what  I  reserved  for  special  comment  in  the  future :  that  dur 
ing  more  than  ten  years'  residence  in  Europe  I  had  one  thing 
steadily  in  view  all  the  time,  at  which  I  worked  hard,  which 
was  to  qualify  myself  to  return  to  America  and  there  intro 
duce  to  the  public  schools  of  Philadelphia  the  Industrial  or 
Minor  Arts  as  a  branch  of  education,  in  which  I  eventually 
succeeded,  devoting  to  the  work  there  four  years,  applying 
myself  so  assiduously  as  to  neglect  both  society  and  amuse 
ments,  and  not  obtaining,  nor  seeking  for,  pay  or  profit  thereby 
in  any  Avay,  directly  or  indirectly.  And  if  I  have,  as  I  have 
read,  since  then  "  expatriated  "  myself,  my  whole  absence  has 
not  been  much  longer  than  was  that  of  Washington  Irving, 
and  I  trust  to  be  able  to  prove  that  I  have  "  left  my  country 
for  my  country's  good  "—albeit  in  a  somewhat  better  sense 
than  that  which  was  implied  by  the  poet. 

And  I  may  here  incidentally  mention,  with  all  due  mod 
esty,  that  since  the  foregoing  paragraph  came  to  me  "  in  re 
vise,"  I  received  from  Count  Angelo  di  Gubernatis  a  letter, 
beginning  with  the  remark  that,  in  consequence  of  my  gentile 
cd  insistente  premura,  or  "  amiable  persistence,  begun  four 
years  ago,"  he  has  at  length  carried  out  my  idea  and  sugges 
tion  of  establishing  a  great  Italian  Folklore  Society,  of 
which  I  am  to  rank  as  among  the  first  twelve  members. 
This  is  the  fourth  institution  of  the  kind  which  I  have  been 
first,  or  among  the  first,  to  found  in  Europe,  and  it  has  in 


x  PREFACE. 

every  case  been  noted,  not  without  surprise,  that  I  was  an 
American.  Such  associations,  being  wide-reaching  and  cos 
mopolitan,  may  be  indeed  considered  by  every  man  of  culture 
as  patriotic,  and  I  hope  at  some  future  day  that  I  shall  still 
further  prove  that,  as  regards  my  native  country,  I  have  only 
changed  my  sky  but  not  my  heart,  and  laboured  for  American 
interests  as  earnestly  as  ever. 

CHARLES  GODFKEY  LELAND. 
BAGNI  DI  LUCCA,  ITALY,  August  20,  1S03. 


CONTENTS. 


I.— EARLY  LIFE  (1824-1837) 1 

II.— BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH  (1837-1845) 65 

III. — UNIVERSITY  LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE  (1845-1848)     .  107 
IV.— THE  RETURN  TO  AMERICA  (1848-1862)        .        .        .        .190 

V. — LIFE    DURING    THE    ClVIL   WAR    AND   ITS   SEQUENCE   (1862- 

1866) 245 

VI.— LIFE  ON  THE  PRESS  (1866-1869) 318 

VII.— EUROPE  REVISITED  (1869-1870) 370 

VIII.— ENGLAND  (1870) 387 


I. 

EARLY   LIFE. 

1824-1837. 

My  birthplace  —  Count  Bruno  and  Dufief —  Family  items — General 
Lafayette — The  Dutch  witch-nurse — Early  friends  and  associations 
— Philadelphia  sixty  years  ago — Early  reading — Genealogy — First 
schools  —  Summers  in  New  England  —  English  influences — The 
Revolutionary  grandfather — Centenarians — The  last  survivor  of 
the  Boston  Tea-party  and  the  last  signer  of  the  Declaration — 
Indians — Memories  of  relations — A  Quaker  school — My  ups  and 
downs  in  classes — Arithmetic — My  first  ride  in  a  railway  car — 
My  marvellous  invention — Mr.  Alcott's  school — A  Transcendental 
teacher — Rev.  W.  H.  Furness — Miss  Eliza  Leslie — The  boarding- 
school  near  Boston — Books — A  terrible  winter — My  first  poem — I 
return  to  Philadelphia. 

I  AYAS  born  on  the  15th  of  August,  1824,  in  a  house 
which  was  in  Philadelphia,  and  in  Chestnut  Street,  the 
second  door  below  Third  Street,  on  the  north  side.  It  had 
been  built  in  the  old  Colonial  time,  and  in  the  room  in 
which  I  first  saw  life  there  was  an  old  chimney-piece,  which 
was  so  remarkable  that  strangers  visiting  the  city  often  came 
to  see  it.  It  was,  I  believe,  of  old  carved  oak,  possibly  me 
diaeval,  which  had  been  brought  from  some  English  manor 
as  a  relic.  I  am  indebted  for  this  information  to  a  Mr. 
Landreth,  who  lived  in  the  house  at  the  time.* 

*  As  I  was  very  desirous  of  learning  more  about  this  celebrated  fire 
place,  I  inserted  a  request  in  the  Public  Ledger  for  information  regard 
ing  it,  which  elicited  the  following  from  some  one  to  me  unknown,  to 
whom  I  now  return  thanks : — 

"  ME.  CITY-EDITOR  OF  THE  Public  Ledger, — In  your  edition  of  this 
date,  I  notice  a  communication  headed  '  To  Local  Antiquarians.'  With- 


2  MEMOIRS. 

It  was  then  a  boarding-house,  kept  by  a  Mrs.  Rodgers. 
She  had  taken  it  from  a  lady  who  had  also  kept  it  for  board 
ers.  The  daughter  of  this  latter  married  President  Madison. 
She  was  the  well-known  "  Dolly  Madison,"  famous  for  her 
grace,  accomplishments,  and  belle  humeur,  of  whom  there  are 
stories  still  current  in  Washington. 

My  authority  informed  me  that  there  were  among  the 
boarders  in  the  house  two  remarkable  men,  one  of  whom 
often  petted  me  as  a  babe,  and  took  a  fancy  to  me.  He  was 
a  Swedish  Count,  who  had  passed,  it  was  said,  a  very  wild 
life  as  pirate  for  several  years  on  the  Spanish  Main.  He 
was  identified  as  the  Count  Bruno  of  Frederica  Bremer's 
novel,  "  The  Neighbours."  The  other  was  the  famous  phi 
lologist,  Dufief,  author  of  "  Xature  Displayed,"  a  work  of 
such  remarkable  ability  that  I  wonder  that  it  should  have 
passed  into  oblivion. 

My  mother  had  been  from  her  earliest  years  devoted  to 
literature  to  a  degree  which  was  unusual  at  that  time  in  the 
United  States.  She  had  been,  as  a  girl,  a  special  protegee  of 
Hannah  Adams,  the  author  of  many  learned  works,  who  was 
the  first  person  buried  in  the  Mount  Auburn  Cemetery  of 
Boston.  She  directed  my  mother's  reading,  and  had  great 

out  any  well-founded  pretensions  to  the  designation  '  Antiquarian,'  as  I 
get  older  I  still  take  a  great  interest  in  the  early  history  of  our  beloved 
city.  I  remember  distinctly  the  fact,  but  not  the  date,  of  reading  a  de 
scription  of  the  '  mantelpiece.'  It  was  of  wood,  handsomely  carved  on 
the  pillars,  and  under  the  shelf,  and  on  the  centre  between  the  pillars, 
was  the  following  quaint  and  witty  hieroglyphic  inscription  : — 

When  the  grate  is  M.  T.  put  : 
When  it  is  .  putting  : 

which  is  a  little  puzzling  at  first  sight,  but  readily  translated  by  con 
verting  the  punctuation  points  into  written  words.  SENIOR. 
"Frankford,  May  24,  1892." 

I  can  add  to  this,  that  the  chimney-piece  was  originally  made  for 
wood-fires,  and  that  long  after  a  grate  was  set  in  and  the  inscription 
added. 


EARLY  LIFE.  3 

influence  over  her.  My  mother  had  also  been  very  intimate 
with  the  daughters  of  Jonathan  Russell,  the  well-known 
diplomatist.  My  maternal  grandfather  was  Colonel  God 
frey,  who  had  fought  in  the  war  of  the  Revolution,  and  who 
was  at  one  time  an  aide-de-camp  of  the  Governor  of  Massa 
chusetts.  He  was  noted  for  the  remarkable  gentleness  of 
his  character.  I  have  heard  that  when  he  went  forth  of  a 
morning,  all  the  animals  on  his  farm  would  run  to  meet  and 
accompany  him.  He  had  to  a  miraculous  degree  a  certain 
sympathetic  power,  so  that  all  beings,  men  included,  loved 
him.  I  have  heard  my  mother  say  that  as  a  girl  she  had  a 
tame  crow  who  was  named  Tom,  and  that  he  could  distinctly 
cry  the  word  "  What  ?  "  When  Tom  was  walking  about  in 
the  garden,  if  called,  he  would  reply  "  What  ?  "  in  a  per 
fectly  human  manner. 

When  I  was  one  month  old,  General  Lafayette  visited  our 
city  and  passed  in  a  grand  procession  before  the  house.  It  is 
one  of  the  legends  of  my  infancy  that  my  nurse  said,  "  Char 
ley  shall  see  the  General  too ! "  and  held  me  up  to  the  win 
dow.  General  Lafayette,  seeing  this,  laughed  and  bowed  to 
me.  He  was  the  first  gentleman  who  ever  saluted  me  for 
mally.  Wlien  I  reflect  how  in  later  life  adventure,  the  study 
of  languages,  and  a  French  Revolution  came  into  my  experi 
ences,  it  seems  to  me  as  if  Count  Bruno,  Dufief,  and  Lafa 
yette  had  all  been  premonitors  of  the  future. 

I  was  a  great  sufferer  from  many  forms  of  ill-health  in 
my  infancy.  Before  my  second  birthday,  I  had  a  terrible  ill 
ness  with  inflammation  of  the  brain.  Dr.  Dewees  (author  of 
a  well-known  work  on  diseases  of  women  and  children),  who 
attended  me,  said  that  I  was  insane  for  a  week,  and  that  it 
was  a  case  without  parallel.  I  mention  this  because  I  believe 
that  I  owe  to  it  in  a  degree  whatever  nervousness  and  tend 
ency  to  "  idealism  "  or  romance  and  poetry  has  subsequently 
been  developed  in  me.  Through  all  my  childhood  and  youth 
its  influence  was  terribly  felt,  nor  have  I  to  this  day  recov 
ered  from  it. 


4  MEMOIRS. 

I  should  mention  that  iny  first  nurse  in  life  was  an  old 
Dutch  woman  named  Van  der  Poel.  I  had  not  been  born 
many  days  before  I  and  my  cradle  were  missing.  There  was 
a  prompt  outcry  and  search,  and  both  were  soon  found  in  the 
garret  or  loft  of  the  house.  There  I  lay  sleeping,  on  my 
breast  an  open  Bible,  with,  I  believe,  a  key  and  knife,  at  my 
head  lighted  candles,  money,  and  a  plate  of  salt.  Nurse  Van 
der  Poel  explained  that  it  was  done  to  secure  my  rising  in 
life — by  taking  me  up  to  the  garret.  I  have  since  learned 
from  a  witch  that  the  same  is  still  done  in  exactly  the  same 
manner  in  Italy,  and  in  Asia.  She  who  does  it  must  be, 
however,  a  strega  or  sorceress  (my  nurse  was  reputed  to  be 
one),  and  the  child  thus  initiated  will  become  deep  in  dark 
some  lore,  an  adept  in  occulta,  and  a  scholar.  If  I  have  not 
turned  out  to  be  all  of  this  in  majoribus,  it  was  not  the  fault 
of  my  nurse. 

Next  door  to  us  lived  a  family  in  which  were  four  daugh 
ters  who  grew  up  to  be  famous  belles.  It  is  said  that  when 
the  poet  N.  P.  Willis  visited  them,  one  of  these  young  ladies, 
who  was  familiar  with  his  works,  was  so  overcome  that  she 
fainted.  Forty  years  after  Willis  distinctly  recalled  the  cir 
cumstance.  Fainting  was  then  fashionable. 

Among  the  household  friends  of  our  family  I  can  remem 
ber  Mr.  John  Vaughan,  \vho  had  legends  of  Priestley,  Berke 
ley,  and  Thomas  Moore,  and  who  often  dined  with  us  on 
Sunday.  I  can  also  recall  his  personal  reminiscences  of  Gen 
eral  Washington,  Jefferson,  and  all  the  great  men  of  the  pre 
vious  generation.  lie  was  a  gentle  and  beautiful  old  man, 
with  very  courtly  manners  and  snow-white  hair,  which  he 
wore  in  a  queue.  He  gave  away  the  whole  of  a  large  fortune 
to  the  poor.  Also  an  old  Mr.  Crozier,  who  had  been  in 
France  through  all  the  French  Revolution,  and  had  known 
Eobespierre,  Marat,  Fouquier  Tinville,  &c.  I  wish  that  I 
had  betimes  noted  down  all  the  anecdotes  I  ever  heard  from 
them.  There  were  also  two  old  ladies,  own  nieces  of  Benja 
min  Franklin,  who  for  many  years  continually  took  tea  with 


EARLY  LIFE.  5 

us.  One  of  them,  Mrs.  Kinsman,  presented  me  with  the  cot 
ton  quilt  under  which  her  uncle  had  died.  Another  lady, 
Miss  Louisa  Nancrede,  who  had  been  educated  in  France, 
had  seen  Napoleon,  and  often  described  him  to  me.  She  told 
me  many  old  French  fairy-tales,  and  often  sang  a  ballad 
(which  I  found  in  after  years  in  the  works  of  Cazotte), 
which  made  a  great  impression  on  me — something  like  that 
of  "  Childe  Koland  to  the  dark  tower  came."  It  was  called 
Le  Sieur  Enguerrand,  and  the  refrain  was  "  Oh  ma  bonne  fai 
tant  peur" 

That  these  and  many  other  influences  of  culture  stirred 
me  strangely  even  as  a  child,  is  evident  from  the  fact  that 
they  have  remained  so  vividly  impressed  on  my  memory. 
This  reminds  me  that  I  can  distinctly  remember  that  when  I 
was  eight  years  of  age,  in  1832,  my  grandmother,  Mrs.  Oliver 
Leland,  told  my  mother  that  the  great  German  poet  Goethe 
had  recently  died,  and  that  they  bade  me  remember  it.  On 
the  same  day  I  read  in  the  Athenceum  (an  American  reprint 
of  leading  articles,  poems,  &c.,  from  English  magazines, 
which  grandmother  took  all  her  life  long)  a  translation  of 
Schiller's  "  Diver."  I  read  it  only  once,  and  to  this  day  I 
can  repeat  nearly  the  whole  of  it.  I  have  now  by  me,  as  I 
write,  a  silver  messenger-ring  of  King  Kobert,  and  I  never 
see  it  without  thinking  of  the  corner  of  the  room  by  the  side- 
door  where  I  stood  when  grandmother  spoke  of  the  death  of 
Goethe.  But  I  anticipate. 

My  father  was  a  commission  merchant,  and  had  his  place 
of  business  in  Market  Street  below  Third  Street.  His  part 
ner  was  Charles  S.  Boker,  who  had  a  son,  George,  who  will 
often  be  mentioned  in  these  Memoirs.  George  became  in 
after  life  distinguished  as  a  poet,  and  was  Minister  for  many 
years  at  Constantinople  and  at  St.  Petersburg. 

From  Mrs.  Eodgers'  my  parents  went  to  Mrs.  Shinn's, 
in  Second  Street.  It  also  was  a  very  old-fashioned  house, 
with  a  garden  full  of  flowers,  and  a  front  doorstep  almost  on 
a  level  with  the  ground.  The  parlour  had  a  large  old  fire- 


Q  MEMOIRS. 

place,  set  with  blue  tiles  of  the  time  of  Queen  Anne,  and  it 
was  my  delight  to  study  and  have  explained  to  me  from  them 
the  story  of  Joseph  and  his  brethren  and  ^Esop's  fables. 
Everything  connected  with  this  house  recurs  to  me  as  emi 
nently  pleasant,  old-fashioned,  and  very  respectable.  I  can 
remember  something  very  English-like  among  the  gentle 
men-boarders  who  sat  after  dinner  over  their  Madeira,  and 
a  beautiful  lady,  Mrs.  Stanley,  who  gave  me  a  sea-shell. 
Thinking  of  it  all,  I  seem  to  have  lived  in  a  legend  by  Haw 
thorne. 

There  was  another  change  to  a  Mrs.  Eaton's  boarding- 
house  in  Fifth  Street,  opposite  to  the  side  of  the  Franklin 
Library.  I  can  remember  that  there  was  a  very  good  marine 
picture  by  Birch  in  the  drawing-room.  This  was  after  living 
in  the  Washington  Square  house,  of  which  I  shall  speak 
anon.  I  am  not  clear  as  to  these  removals.  There  were 
some  men  of  culture  at  Mrs.  Eaton's — among  them  Sears  C. 
Walker,  a  great  astronomer,  and  a  Dr.  Brewer,  who  had  trav 
elled  in  Italy  and  brought  back  with  him  pieces  of  sculpture. 
We  were  almost  directly  opposite  the  State  House,  where 
liberty  had  been  declared,  while  to  the  side,  across  the  street, 
was  the  Library  founded  by  Dr.  Franklin,  with  his  statue 
over  the  door.  One  of  his  nieces  often  told  me  that  this  was 
an  absolutely  perfect  likeness.  The  old  iron  railing,  now  re 
moved — more's  the  pity  ! — surrounded  the  Square,  which  was 
full  of  grand  trees. 

It  was  believed  that  the  spirit  of  Dr.  Franklin  haunted 
the  Library,  reading  the  books.  Once  a  coloured  woman, 
who,  in  darkey  fashion,  was  scrubbing  the  floor  after  mid 
night,  beheld  the  form.  She  was  so  frightened  that  she 
fainted.  But  stranger  still,  when  the  books  were  removed  to 
the  New  Library  in  Locust  Street,  the  ghost  went  with  them, 
and  there  it  still  "  spooks  "  about  as  of  yore  to  this  day,  as 
every  negro  in  the  quarter  knows. 

In  regard  to  Franklin  and  his  apparition,  there  was  a 
schoolboy  joke  to  this  effect :  that  whenever  the  statue  of 


EARLY  LIFE.  7 

Franklin  over  the  Library  door  heard  the  clock  strike  twelve 
at  night,  it  descended,  went  to  the  old  Jefferson  Wigwam, 
and  drank  a  glass  of  beer.  But  the  sell  lay  in  this,  that  a 
statue  cannot  hear. 

And  there  was  a  dim  old  legend  of  a  colony  of  Finns, 
who,  in  the  Swedish  time,  had  a  village  all  to  themselves  in 
Wiccacoe.  They  were  men  of  darksome  lore  and  magic 
skill,  and  their  women  were  witches,  who  at  tide  and  time 
sailed  forth  merrily  on  brooms  to  the  far-away  highlands  of 
the  Hudson,  where  they  held  high  revel  with  their  Yankee, 
Dutch,  and  Indian  colleagues  of  the  mystic  spell.  David 
MacEitchie,  in  a  recent  work,  has  made  a  note  of  this  curious 
offshoot  of  the  old  Philadelphia  Swedes. 

And  I  can  also  remember  that  before  a  marble  yard  in 
Race  Street  there  were  two  large  statues  of  very  grim  for 
bidding-looking  dogs,  of  whom  it  was  said  that  when  there 
was  any  one  about  to  die  in  the  quarter,  these  uncanny 
hounds  came  down  during  a  nightly  storm  and  howled  a 
death  duet. 

And  when  I  was  very  young  there  still  lingered  in  the 
minds  of  those  invaluable  living  chronicles  (whether  bound 
in  sheepskin  or  in  calf),  the  oldest  inhabitants,  memories 
from  before  the  Revolution  of  the  Indian  market,  when  on 
every  Saturday  the  natives  came  from  their  rural  retreats, 
bringing  pelts  or  skins,  baskets,  moccasins,  mocos  or  birch 
boxes  of  maple-sugar,  feathers,  and  game  for  sale.  Then 
they  ranged  themselves  all  along  the  west  side  of  Independ 
ence  Square,  in  tents  or  at  tables,  and  sold — or  were  sold 
themselves — in  bargains.  Even  now  the  Sunday-child,  or  he 
who  is  gifted  to  behold  the  departed,  may  see  the  ghostly 
forms  of  Red-men  carrying  on  that  weekly  goblin  market. 
Miss  Eliza  Leslie's  memory  was  full  of  these  old  stories, 
which  she  had  collected  from  old  people. 

As  for  the  black  witches,  as  there  were  still  four  negro 
sorcerers  in  Philadelphia  in  1883  (I  have  their  addresses),  it 
may  be  imagined  to  what  an  extent  Voodoo  still  prevailed 


8  MEMOIRS. 

among  our  Ebo-ny  men  and  brothers.  Of  one  of  these  my 
mother  had  a  sad  experience.  We  had  a  black  cook  named 
Ann  Lloyd,  of  whom,  to  express  it  mildly,  one  must  say  that 
she  was  "  no  good."  My  mother  dismissed  her,  but  several 
who  succeeded  her  left  abruptly.  Then  it  was  found  that 
Ann,  who  professed  to  be  a  witch,  had  put  a  spell  of  death  on 
all  who  should  take  her  place.  My  mother  learned  this,  and 
when  the  last  black  cook  gave  warning  she  received  a  good 
admonition  as  to  a  Christian  being  a  slave  to  the  evil  one. 
I  believe  that  this  ended  the  enchantment.  There  is  or  was 
in  South  Fifth  Street  an  African  church,  over  the  door 
of  which  was  the  charming  inscription,  "  Those  who  have 
walked  in  Darkness  have  seen  a  great  light."  But  this  light 
has  not  even  yet  penetrated  to  the  darksome  depths  of  Lom 
bard  or  South  Streets,  if  I  may  believe  the  strange  tales  which 
I  have  heard,  even  of  late,  of  superstition  there. 

Philadelphia  was  a  very  beautiful  old-fashioned  city  in 
those  days,  with  a  marked  character.  Every  house  had  its 
garden,  in  which  vines  twined  over  arbours,  and  the  magnolia, 
honeysuckle,  and  rose  spread  rich  perfume  of  summer  nights, 
and  where  the  humming-bird  rested,  and  scarlet  tanager  or 
oriole  with  the  yellow  and  blue  bird  flitted  in  sunshine  or  in 
shade.  Then  swallows  darted  at  noon  over  the  broad  streets, 
and  the  mighty  sturgeon  was  so  abundant  in  the  Delaware 
that  one  could  hardly  remain  a  minute  on  the  wharf  in 
early  morn  or  ruddy  evening  without  seeing  some  six-foot 
monster  dart  high  in  air,  falling  on  his  side  with  a  plash. 
In  the  winter-time  the  river  was  allowed  to  freeze  over,  and 
then  every  schoolboy  walked  across  to  Camden  and  back,  as 
if  it  had  been  a  pilgrimage  or  religious  duty,  while  meantime 
there  was  always  a  kind  of  Russian  carnival  on  the  ice,  oxen 
being  sometimes  roasted  whole,  and  all  kinds  of  "  fakirs,"  as 
they  are  now  termed,  selling  doughnuts,  spruce-beer,  and 
gingerbread,  or  tempting  the  adventurous  with  thimblerig ; 
many  pedestrians  stopping  at  the  old-fashioned  inn  on 
Smith's  Island  for  hot  punch.  Juleps  and  cobblers,  and  the 


EARLY  LIFE.  9 

"  one  thousand  and  one  American  fancy  drinks,"  were  not  as 
yet  invented,  and  men  drank  themselves  unto  the  devil  quite 
as  easily  on  rum  or  brandy  straight,  peach  and  honey,  madeira 
and  punch,  as  they  now  do  on  more  varied  temptations. 
Lager  beer  was  not  as  yet  in  the  land.  I  remember  drink 
ing  it  in  after  years  in  New  Street,  where  a  German  known  as 
der  dicke  Georg  first  dealt  it  in  1848  to  our  American  public. 
Maize- whisky  could  then  be  bought  for  fifteen  cents  a  gal 
lon  ;  even  good  "  old  rye  "  was  not  much  dearer ;  and  the 
best  Havanna  cigars  until  1840  cost  only  three  cents  a-piece. 
As  they  rose  in  price  they  depreciated  in  quality,  and  it  is 
now  many  years  since  I  have  met  with  a  really  aromatic  old- 
fashioned  Havanna. 

It  was  a  very  well-shaded,  peaceful  city,  not  "  a  great  vil 
lage,"  as  it  was  called  by  New  Yorkers,  but  like  a  pleasant 
English  town  of  earlier  times,  in  which  a  certain  picturesque 
rural  beauty  still  lingered.  The  grand  old  double  houses, 
with  high  flights  of  steps,  built  by  the  Colonial  aristocracy — 
such  as  the  Bird  mansion  in  Chestnut  Street  by  Ninth  Street 
— had  a  marked  and  pleasing  character,  as  had  many  of  the 
quaint  black  and  red-brick  houses,  whose  fronts  reminded 
one  of  the  chequer-board  map  of  our  city.  All  of  this  quiet 
charm  departed  from  them  after  they  were  surrounded  by  a 
newer  and  noisier  life.  I  well  remember  one  of  these  fine 
old  Colonial  houses.  It  had  been  the  old  Penington  mansion, 
but  belonged  in  my  early  boyhood  to  Mr.  Jones,  who  was  one 
of  my  father's  partners  in  business.  It  stood  at  the  corner  of 
Fourth  and  Race  Streets,  and  was  surrounded  on  all  sides  by 
a  garden.  There  was  a  legend  to  the  effect  that  a  beautiful 
lady,  who  had  long  before  inhabited  the  house,  had  been  so 
fond  of  this  garden,  that  after  death  her  spirit  was  often  seen 
of  summer  nights  tending  or  watering  the  flowers.  She  was 
a  gentle  ghost,  and  the  story  made  a  great  impression  on  me, 
I  still  possess  a  pictured  tile  from  a  chimney-piece  of  this  old 
mansion. 

The  house  is  gone,  but  it  is  endeared  to  me  by  a  very 


10  MEMOIRS. 

strange  memory.  When  I  was  six  or  seven  years  of  age,  I 
had  read  Shakespeare's  "  Tempest,"  and  duly  reflected  on  it. 
The  works  of  Shakespeare  were  very  rare  indeed  in  Quaker 
Philadelphia  in  those  days,  and  much  tabooed,  but  Mr.  Jones, 
who  had  a  good  library  in  the  great  hall  upstairs,  possessed  a 
set  in  large  folio.  This  I  was  allowed  to  read,  but  not  to  re 
move  from  the  place.  How  well  I  can  remember  passing  my 
Saturday  afternoons  reading  those  mighty  tomes,  standing 
first  on  one  leg,  then  on  the  other  for  very  weariness,  yet  ab 
sorbed  and  fascinated ! 

About  this  time  I  was  taken  to  the  theatre  to  see  Fannie 
Kemble  in  "  Much  Ado  About  Nothing  " — or  it  may  have 
been  to  a  play  before  that  time — when  my  father  said  to  me 
that  he  supposed  I  had  never  heard  of  Shakespeare.  To 
which  I  replied  by  repeating  all  the  songs  in  the  "  Tempest." 
One  of  these,  referring  to  the  loves  of  certain  sailors,  is  not 
very  decent,  but  I  had  not  the  remotest  conception  of  its  im 
propriety,  and  so  proceeded  to  repeat  it.  A  saint  of  virtue 
must  have  laughed  at  such  a  declamation. 

As  it  recurs  to  me,  the  spirit  which  was  over  Philadelphia 
in  my  boyhood,  houses,  gardens,  people,  and  their  life,  was 
strangely  quiet,  sunny,  and  quaint,  a  dream  of  olden  time 
drawn  into  modern  days.  The  Quaker  predominated,  and 
his  memories  were  mostly  in  the  past ;  ours,  as  I  have  often 
said,  was  a  city  of  great  trees,  which  seemed  to  me  to  be  ever 
repeating  their  old  poetic  legends  to  the  wind  of  Swedes, 
witches,  and  Indians. 

Among  the  street-cries  and  sounds,  the  first  which  I 
can  remember  was  the  postman's  horn,  when  I  was  hardly 
three  years  old.  Then  there  were  the  watchmen,  "  who 
cried  the  hour  and  weather  all  night  long."  Also  a  col 
oured  man  who  shouted,  in  a  strange,  musical  strain  which 
could  be  heard  a  mile  : 

"  Tra-la-la-la-ln-la-loo. 
Le-mon-ice-cream  ! 
An'-wanilla-too ! " 


EARLY  LIFE.  H 

Also  the  quaint  old  Hominy-man  : 

"  De  Hominy  man  is  on  his  way, 
Frum  de  Navy-Yard ! 
Wid  his  harmony!" 

(Spoken)  "Lawbessde  putty  eyes  ob  de  young  lady!  Hominy's 
good  fur  de  young  ladies ! 

"  De  Harmony  man  is  on  his  way,"  &c. 

Also,  "  Hot-corn  ! "  "  Pepper-pot ! "  "  Be-au-ti-ful  Clams ! " 
with  the  "  Sweep-oh  "  cry,  and  charcoal  and  muffin  bells. 

One  of  the  family  legends  was,  that  being  asked  by  some 
lady,  for  Avhom  I  had  very  little  liking,  to  come  and  visit  her, 
I  replied  with  great  politeness,  but  also  with  marked  firm 
ness,  "  I  am  very  much  obliged  to  you,  ma'am,  and  thank  you 
—but  I  tvon't." 

In  Washington  Square,  three  doors  from  us,  at  the  corner 
of  Walnut  Street,  lived  Dr.  George  McClellan.  He  had  two 
sons,  one,  John,  of  my  own  age,  the  other,  George,  who  was 
three  years  younger.  Both  went  to  school  with  me  in  later 
years.  George  became  a  soldier,  and  finally  rose  to  the  head 
of  the  army  in  the  first  year  of  the  War  of  Rebellion,  or 
Emancipation,  as  I  prefer  to  term  it. 

Washington  Square,  opposite  our  house,  had  been  in  the 
olden  time  a  Potter's  Field,  where  all  the  victims  of  the  yel 
low  fever  pestilence  had  been  interred.  Now  it  had  become 
a  beautiful  little  park,  but  there  were  legends  of  a  myriad  of 
white  confused  forms  seen  flitting  over  it  in  the  night,  for  it 
was  a  mysterious  haunted  place  to  many  still,  and  I  can  re 
member  my  mother  gently  reproving  one  of  our  pretty  neigh 
bours  for  repeating  such  tales. 

I  have  dreamy  yet  very  oft-recurring  memories  of  my  life 
in  childhood,  as,  for  instance,  that  just  before  I  was  quite 
three  years  old  I  had  given  to  me  a  copy  of  the  old  New  Eng 
land  Primer,  which  I  could  not  then  read,  yet  learned  from 
others  the  rhymes  with  the  quaint  little  cuts. 

"  In  Adam's  fall 
We  sin-ned  all." 


12  MEMOIRS. 

"  My  book  and  heart 
Shall  never  part,"  &c. 

Also  of  a  gingerbread  toy,  with  much  sugar,  colour,  and 
gilding,  and  of  lying  in  a  crib  and  having  the  measles.  I  can 
remember  that  I  understood  the  meaning  of  the  word  dead 
before  that  of  alive,  because  I  told  my  nurse  that  I  had  heard 
that  Dr.  Dewees  was  dead.  But  she  replying  that  he  was 
not,  but  alive,  I  repeated  "  live  "  as  one  not  knowing  what  it 
meant. 

I  recollect,  also,  that  one  day,  when  poring  over  the  pic 
tures  in  a  toy-book,  my  Uncle  Amos  calling  me  a  good  little 
boy  for  so  industriously  reading,  I  felt  guilty  and  ashamed 
because  I  could  not  read,  and  did  not  like  to  admit  it. 
Whatever  my  faults  or  follies  may  be,  I  certainly  had  an 
innate  rectitude,  a  strong  sense  of  honesty,  just  as  many 
children  have  the  contrary ;  and  this,  I  believe,  is  due  to  in 
herited  qualities,  though  these  in  turn  are  greatly  modified 
by  early  association  and  influences.  That  I  also  had  preco 
cious  talent  and  taste  for  the  romantic,  poetic,  marvellous, 
quaint,  supernatural,  and  humorous,  was  soon  manifested. 
Even  as  an  infant  objects  of  Iric-a-brac  and  of  antiquity 
awoke  in  me  an  interest  allied  to  passion  or  awe,  for  which 
there  was  no  parallel  among  others  of  my  age.  This  was,  I 
believe,  the  old  spirit  which  had  come  down  through  the 
ages  into  my  blood — the  spirit  which  inspired  Leland  the 
Flos  Grammaticorum,  and  after  him  John  Leland,  the  anti 
quary  of  King  Henry  VIII.,  and  Chrs.  (Charles)  Leland, 
who  was  secretary  of  the  Society  of  Antiquaries  in  the  time 
of  Charles  I.  Let  me  hereby  inform  those  who  think  that 
"  Chrs."  means  Christopher,  that  there  has  been  a  Charles  in 
the  family  since  time  immemorial,  alternated  with  an  Oliver 
since  the  days  of  Cromwell. 

John  Leyland,  an  Englishman,  now  living,  who  is  a  deep 
and  sagacious  scholar,  and  the  author  of  the  "  Antiquities  of 
the  Town  of  Halifax"  (a  very  clever  work),  declares  that  for 
four  hundred  years  there  has  not  been  a  generation  in  which 


EARLY  LIFE.  13 

some  Leland  (or  Leyland)  of  the  old  Bussli  de  Leland  stock 
has  not  written  a  work  on  antiquity  or  allied  to  antiquarian- 
ism,  though  in  one  case  it  is  a  translation  of  Demosthenes, 
and  in  another  a  work  on  Deistical  Writers.  He  traces  the 
connection  with  his  own  family  of  the  Henry  Leland,  my 
ancestor,  a  rather  prominent  political  Puritan  character  in 
his  time,  who  first  went  to  America  in  1636,  and  acquired 
laud  which  my  grandfather  still  owned.  It  was  very  exten 
sive. 

There  is  a  De  la  Laund  in  the  roll  of  Battle  Abbey,*  but 
John  says  our  progenitor  was  De  Bussli,  who  came  over  with 
the  Conqueror,  ravaged  all  Yorkshire,  killing  100,000  men, 
and  who  also-  burned  up,  perhaps  alive,  the  1,000  Jews  in  the 
Tower  of  York.  For  these  eminent  services  to  the  state  he 
was  rewarded  with  the  manor  of  Leyland,  from  which  he 
took  his  name.  The  very  first  complete  genealogical  register 
of  any  American  family  ever  published  was  that  of  the  Leland 
family,  by  Judge  Leland,  of  Roxbury,  Mass,  (but  for  which 
he  was  really  chiefly  indebted  to  another  of  the  name),  in 
which  it  is  shown  that  Henry  Leland  had  had  in  1847  fifteen 
thousand  descendants  in  America.  In  regard  to  which  I  am 

*  Also  given  as  Delaund  or  Dollaund  in  one  copy.  De  Quincey  was 
proud  of  his  descent  from  De  la  Laund.  I  may  here  say  that  John 
Leyland,  who  is  a  painstaking  and  conscientious  antiquarian  and  accom 
plished  genealogist,  has  been  much  impressed  with  the  extraordinary 
similarity  of  disposition,  tastes,  and  pursuits  which  has  characterised 
the  Lelands  for  centuries.  Any  stranger  knowing  us  would  think  that 
he  and  [  were  nearly  related.  It  is  told  of  the  manor  of  Leyland  that 
during  the  early  Middle  Ages  it  was  attempted  to  build  a  church  there 
in  a  certain  place,  but  every  morning  the  stones  were  found  to  be  re 
moved.  Finally,  it  was  completed,  but  the  next  dawn  beheld  the  whole 
edifice  removed  to  the  other  spot,  while  a  spirit-voice  was  heard  to  call 
(one  account  says  that  the  words  were  found  on  a  mystic  scroll) : 

"$m  s^nll  ill  bcr, 
§i.nb  ^crc  alraU  itt  stanitt; 
gi.nb  t{jis  s|raU  bte  ralltb: 
ge  Cjjurrfct  of 


14:  MEMOIRS. 

honoured  with  a  membership  in  the  Massachusetts  Genealog 
ical  Society.  The  crest  of  Bussli  and  the  rest  of  us  is  a  raven 
or  crow  transfixed  by  an  arrow,  with  a  motto  which  I  dearly 
love.  It  is  Cui  debeo,  fidus.  Very  apropos  of  this  crow  or 
raven  is  the  following:  Heinrich  Heine,  in  his  "  Germany" 
(vol.  ii.  p.  211,  Heinemann's  edition),  compares  the  same  to 
priests  "  whose  pious  croaking  is  so  well  known  to  our  ears." 
This  is  in  reference  to  such  birds  which  fly  about  the  moun 
tain  of  Kyffhiluser,  in  which  the  Emperor  Friedrich  Barba- 
rossa  is  sleeping,  and  where  he  will  sleep  till  they  disappear. 
And  then,  praising  himself,  Heine  adds :  "  But  old  age  has 
weakened  them,  and  there  are  good  marksmen  who  know 
right  well  how  to  bring  them  down.  I  know  one  of  these 
archers,  who  now  lives  in  Paris,  and  who  knows  how,  even 
from  that  distance,  to  hit  the  crows  which  fly  about  the 
Kyffhiiuser.  When  the  Emperor  returns  to  earth,  he  will 
surely  find  on  his  way  more  than  one  raven  slain  by  this 
archer's  arrows.  And  the  old  hero  will  say,  smiling,  '  That 
man  carried  a  good  bow.' "  In  my  note  to  this  I  remarked 
that  "  the  raven  or  crow  transfixed  by  an  arrow  is  the  crest 
of  the  coat-of-arms  of  the  name  of  Leland,  or  of  my  own.  I 
sincerely  trust  that  Bussli,  the  first  who  bore  it,  did  not 
acquire  the  right  to  do  so  by  shooting  a  clergyman."  As  a 
single  crow  is  an  omen  of  ill-luck,  so  the  same  transfixed  sig 
nifies  misfortune  overcome,  or  the  forcible  ending  of  evil  in 
fluences  by  a  strong  will.  It  is  a  common  belief  or  saying 
among  all  the  Lelands,  however  widely  related,  that  there  has 
never  been  a  convicted  criminal  of  the  name.  Dii  faxint ! 

At  four  years  of  age,  while  still  living  in  Washington 
Square,  I  was  sent  to  an  infant  school  in  Walnut  Street, 
above  Eighth  Street,  south  side,  near  by.  It  was  kept  by  the 
Misses  Donaldson.  We  all  sat  in  a  row,  on  steps,  as  in  an 
amphitheatre,  but  in  straight  lines.  Miss  Donaldson,  senior, 
sat  at  a  desk,  prim  and  perpendicular,  holding  a  rod  which 
was  fifteen  or  twenty  feet  in  length,  with  which  she  could 
hit  on  the  head  or  poke  any  noisy  or  drowsy  child,  without 


EARLY  LIFE.  15 

stirring  from  her  post.  It  was  an  ingenious  invention,  and 
one  which  might  be  employed  to  advantage  in  small  churches. 
I  can  remember  that  at  this  time  I  could  not  hear  a  tune 
played  without  stringing  my  thoughts  to  it ;  not  that  I  have 
any  special  ear  for  music,  but  because  I  am  moved  by  melody. 
There  was  a  rhyme  that  was  often  sung  to  me  to  the  tune  of 
"  Over  the  Water  "— 

"  Charley  Buff 

Had  money  enough, 
And  locked  it  in  his  store ; 

Charley  die 

And  shut  his  eye, 
And  never  saw  money  no  more." 

The  influence  of  this  and  other  tunes  on  my  thought  was 
so  great,  that  I  have  often  wondered  whether  anybody  ever 
realised  how  much  we  may  owe  to  metre  acting  on  thought ; 
for  I  do  not  believe  that  I  ever  penned  any  poetry  in  my  life 
unless  it  was  to  a  tune  ;  and  even  in  this  prose  which  I  now 
write  there  is  ever  and  anon  a  cadence  as  of  a  brook  running 
along,  then  rising,  anon  falling,  perceptible  to  me  though 
not  to  you,  yet  which  has  many  a  time  been  noted  down  by 
critics  speaking  gently  of  my  work.  This  induced  me  to 
learn  betimes  an  incredible  number  of  songs ;  in  fact,  at  the 
age  of  ten  or  eleven  I  had  most  of  Percy's  "  Kelics  "  by  heart. 
This  naturally  enough  led  me  to  read,  and  reading  under 
stand,  an  amount  of  poetry  of  such  varied  character  that  I 
speak  with  strictest  truth  in  saying  that  I  have  never  met 
with,  and  never  even  read  of,  any  boy  who,  as  a  mere  little 
boy,  had  mastered  such  a  number  and  variety  of  ballads  and 
minor  poems  as  I  had  done — as  will  appear  in  the  course  of 
this  narrative. 

"While  living  at  Mrs.  Eaton's  I  was  sent  to  a  school  kept 
by  two  very  nice  rather  young  Quaker  ladies  in  Walnut 
Street.  It  was  just  opposite  a  very  quaint  old-fashioned  col 
lection  of  many  little  dwellings  in  one  (modelled  after  the 
Fuggerei  of  Augsburg?)  known  as  the  Quaker  Almshouse. 


16  MEMOIRS. 

One  morning  I  played  truant,  and  became  so  fearfully  weary 
and  bored  lounging  about,  that  I  longed  for  the  society  of 
school,  and  never  stayed  from  study  any  more.  Here  I  was 
learning  to  read,  and  I  can  remember  "  The  History  of  Little 
Jack,"  and  discussing  with  a  comrade  the  question  as  to 
whether  the  word  history  really  meant  his  story,  or  was  in 
geniously  double  and  inclusive.  I  also  about  this  time  be 
came  familiar  with  many  minor  works,  such  as  are  all  now 
sold  at  high  prices  as  chap-books,  such  as  "Marmaduke 
Multiply,"  "  The  World  Turned  Upside  Down,"  "  Chronon- 
hotonthologos,"  "  The  Noble  History  of  the  Giants,"  and 
others  of  Mr.  Newberry's  gilt-cover  toy-books.  All  of  our 
juvenile  literature  in  those  days  was  without  exception  Lon 
don  made,  and  very  few  persons  can  now  realise  how  deeply 
Anglicised  I  was,  and  how  all  this  reading  produced  associa 
tions  and  feelings  which  made  dwelling  in  England  in  later 
years  seem  like  a  return  to  a  half-forgotten  home,  of  which 
we  have,  however,  pleasant  fairy-tale  reminiscences. 

The  mistress  of  the  school  was  named  Sarah  Lewis,  and 
while  there,  something  of  a  very  extraordinary  nature — to 
me,  at  least — took  place.  One  day,  while  at  my  little  desk, 
there  came  into  my  head  with  a  strange  and  unaccountable 
intensity  this  thought :  "  I  am  I— I  am  Myself— I  myself  /," 
and  so  on.  By  forcing  this  thought  on  myself  very  rapidly, 
I  produced  a  something  like  suspension  of  thought  or  syn 
cope  ;  not  a  vertigo,  but  that  mental  condition  which  is  allied 
to  it.  I  have  several  times  read  of  men  who  recorded  nearly 
the  same  thing  among  their  youthful  experiences,  but  I  do 
not  recall  that  any  of  them  induced  this  coma  by  reflecting 
on  the  ego-ism  of  the  I,  or  the  me-ness  of  the  Me.*  It  often 
recurred  to  me  in  after  years  when  studying  Schelling  and 

*  A  similar  incident  is  recorded  in  Kenelm  Chillingly.  I  had  long 
before  the  publication  of  the  work  conversed  with  Lord  Lytton  on  the 
subject— which  is  also  touched  on  in  my  Skeich-Sook  of  Meister  Karl, 
of  which  the  illustrious  author  had  a  copy. 


EARLY  LIFE.  17 

Fichte,  or  reading  works  by  Mystics,  Quietists,  and  the  like. 
At  a  very  early  age  I  was  indeed  very  much  given  to  in 
dulging  in  states  of  mind  resembling  metaphysical  abstrac 
tion — a  kind  of  vague  marvelling  what  I  was  and  what  others 
were ;  whether  they  and  everything  were  not  spirits  playing 
me  tricks,  or  a  delusion — a  kind  of  psychology  without  ma 
terial  or  thought,  like  a  workman  without  tools. 

For  a  short  time,  while  five  or  six  years  old,  and  living  at 
Mrs.  Eaton's,  I  was  sent  to  a  school  of  boys  of  all  ages,  kept 
by  a  man  named  Eastburn,  in  Library  Street,  whom  I  can 
only  recall  as  a  coarse,  brutal  fiend.  From  morning  to  night 
there  was  not  a  minute  in  which  some  boy  was  not  screaming 
iinder  the  heavy  rattan  which  he  or  his  brother  always  held. 
I  myself — infant  as  I  was — for  not  learning  a  spelling-lesson 
properly,  was  subjected  to  a  caning  which  would  have  been 
cruel  if  inflicted  on  a  convict  or  sailor.  In  the  lower  story 
this  man's  sister  kept  a  girls'  school,  and  the  ruffian  was  con 
tinually  being  called  down-stairs  to  beat  the  larger  girls.  My 
mother  knew  nothing  of  all  this,  and  I  was  ashamed  to  tell 
that  I  had  been  whipped.  I  have  all  my  life  been  opposed 
to  corporal  punishment,  be  it  in  schools  or  for  criminals.  It 
brings  out  of  boys  all  that  is  evil  in  their  nature  and  nothing 
that  is  good,  developing  bullying  and  cruelty,  while  it  is 
eminently  productive  of  cowardice,  lying,  and  meanness — as 
I  have  frequently  found  when  I  came  to  hear  the  private  life 
of  those  who  defend  it  as  creating  "  manliness."  It  was 
found  during  the  American  war  that  the  soldiers  who  had 
been  most  accustomed  to  beating  and  to  being  beaten  were 
by  far  the  greatest  cowards,  and  that  "  Billy  Wilson's  "  regi 
ment  of  pugilists  was  so  absolutely  worthless  as  to  be  un 
qualified  for  the  field  at  any  time.  One  thing  is  very  certain, 
that  I  have  found  that  boys  who  attend  schools  where  there 
is  no  whipping,  and  little  or  no  fighting,  are  freest  from  that 
coarseness  which  is  so  invariably  allied  to  meanness,  lying, 
and  dishonesty.  I  had  about  2000  children  in  the  public 
schools  of  Philadelphia  pass  under  my  teaching,  and  never 


18  MEMOIRS. 

met  with  but  one  instance  of  direct  rudeness.  There  was 
also  only  one  of  dishonesty  or  theft,  and  that  was  by  a  fight 
ing  boy,  who  looked  like  a  miniature  pugilist.  Philadelphia 
manners  Avere  formed  by  Quakers.  When  I  visited,  in  1884, 
certain  minor  art- work  classes  established  in  the  East  End  of 
London,  Mr.  Walter  Besant  said  to  me  that  I  would  find  a 
less  gentle  set  of  pupils.  In  fact,  in  the  first  school  which  I 
examined,  the  girls  had,  the  week  before,  knocked  down, 
kicked,  and  trampled  on  an  elderly  lady  who  had  come  to 
teach  them  art-work  out  of  pure  benevolence.  I  am  often 
told  that  whipping  put  an  end  to  garroting.  If  this  be  true, 
which  it  is  not  (for  garroting  was  a  merely  temporary  fancy, 
which  died  out  in  America  without  whipping),  it  only  proves 
that  the  garotters,  who  were  all  fighting  and  boxing  roughs, 
were  mere  cowards.  Eed  Indians  never  whip  children,  but 
they  will  die  under  torture  without  a  groan. 

My  parents  were  from  Massachusetts,  and  every  summer 
they  returned  to  pass  several  months  in  or  near  Boston,  gen 
erally  with  their  relatives  in  Worcester  county,  in  Dedham, 
in  the  "  Hub  "  itself,  or  in  Milford,  Mendon,  or  Holliston, 
the  home  of  my  paternal  grandfather,  Oliver  Leland.  Thus 
I  grew  to  be  familiar  with  New  England,  its  beautiful  scenery 
and  old-fashioned  Yankee  rural  ways.  Travelling  was  then 
by  stage-coach,  and  it  took  two  days  to  go  from  Philadelphia 
to  Boston,  stopping  on  the  way  overnight  at  Princeton,  Perth 
Amboy,  or  Providence.  This  is  to  me  a  very  interesting 
source  of  reminiscences.  In  Dedham,  for  three  summers,  I 
attended  school.  I  remember  that  we  stayed  with  Dr.  Jeremy 
Stimson,  who  had  married  a  sister  of  my  mother.  I  studied 
French ;  and  can  recall  that  my  cousins  Caroline  and  Emily, 
who  were  very  beautiful  young  ladies,  generally  corrected  my 
exercises.  I  was  then  seven  or  eight  years  of  age.  Also  that 
I  was  very  much  alone ;  that  I  had  a  favourite  bow,  made  by 
some  old  Indian  ;  that  I  read  with  great  relish  "  Gil  Bias  " 
and  "  Don  Quixote,"  and  especially  books  of  curiosities  and 
oddities  which  had  a  great  influence  on  me.  I  wandered 


EARLY  LIFE.  19 

for  days  by  myself  fishing,  strolling  in  beautiful  wild  places 
among  rocks  and  fields,  or  in  forests  by  the  Eiver  Charles.  I 
can  remember  how  one  Sunday  during  service  I  sat  in  church 
unseen  behind  the  organ,  and  read  Benvenuto  Cellini's  ac 
count  of  the  sorcerer  in  the  Colosseum  in  Eome :  I  shall  see 
his  Perseus  ten  minutes  hence  in  the  Signoria  of  Florence, 
where  I  now  write. 

Then  there  were  the  quiet  summer  evenings  in  the  draw 
ing-room,  where  my  cousins  played  the  piano  and  sang  "  The 
Sunset  Tree,"  "  Alknoomuk,"  "  I  see  them  on  the  winding 
way,"  and  Moore's  melodies.  Tempi  passati — "  'Tis  sixty 
years  since."  Caroline  meantime  married  a  Mr.  Wight,  who 
had  passed  most  of  his  life  in  England,  and  was  thoroughly 
Anglicised.  There  was  also  an  English  lady  .visiting  America 
who  stayed  a  while  in  Dedham  to  be  with  my  cousin.  She 
was  jeune  encore,  but  had  with  her  a  young  English  gen 
tleman  relative  who  would  call  her  "  Mamma ! "  which  we 
thought  rather  niais.  From  my  reading  and  my  few  ex 
periences  I,  however,  acquired  a  far  greater  insight  into  life 
than  most  boys  would  have  done,  for  I  remembered  and 
thought  long  over  everything  I  heard  or  learned.  Between 
my  mother  and  cousins  and  our  visitors  there  was  much  read 
ing  and  discussion  of  literary  topics,  and  I  listened  to  more 
than  any  one  noted,  and  profited  by  it. 

I  was  always  reading  and  mentally  reviewing.  If  my 
mother  made  a  call,  I  was  at  once  absorbed  in  the  first  book 
which  came  to  hand.  Thus  I  can  remember  that  one  sum 
mer,  when  we  came  to  Dr.  Stimson's,  during  the  brief  inter 
val  of  our  being  shown  into  the  "  parlour,"  I  seized  on  a  Uni 
tarian  literary  magazine  and  read  the  story  of  Osapho,  the 
Egyptian  who  trained  parrots  to  cry,  "  Osapho  is  a  god ! " 
Also  an  article  on  Chinese  acupuncture  with  needles  to  cure 
rheumatism;  which  chance  readings  and  reminiscences  I 
could  multiply  ad  infinitum. 

My  cousin  Caroline,  whom  I  remember  as  very  beautiful 
and  refined,  with  a  distinyuee  manner,  had  a  small  work- 


20  MEMOIRS. 

box,  on  the  cover  of  which  was  a  picture  of  the  Pavilion  in 
Brighton.  She  spoke  of  the  building  as  a  rubbishy  piece 
of  architecture;  but  I,  who  felt  it  through  the  "Arabian 
Nights,"  admired  it,  and  pitied  her  want  of  taste.  Now  I 
have  lived  altogether  three  years  in  Brighton,  but  I  never 
saw  the  Pavilion  without  recalling  the  little  yellow  work- 
box.  In  some  mysterious  way  the  picture  seems  to  me  to  be 
grander  than  the  original.  Dickens  has  expressed  this  idea. 
I  was  too  grave  and  earnest  as  a  child  to  be  called  a  cheer 
ful  or  happy  one,  which  was  partly  due  to  much  ill-health ; 
yet,  by  a  strange  contradiction  not  uncommon  in  America,  I 
was  gifted  with  a  precociously  keen  sense  of  humour,  and 
not  only  read,  but  collected  and  preserved  every  comic  alma 
nac  and  scrap  of  droll  anecdote  which  I  could  get.  Thus 
there  came  into  my  possession  half-a-dozen  books  of  the 
broadest  London  humour  of  the  time,  all  of  which  entered 
into  my  soul ;  such  things  as : — 

"  Ladies  in  furs  and  gcmmcn  in  spurs, 

Who  lollop  and  lounge  all  day ; 
The  Bazaar  in  Soho  is  completely  the  go, 
Walk  into  the  shop  of  Grimaldi." 

Reader  mine,  you  can  have  no  conception  how  deeply  I, 
as  a  mere  little  boy,  entered  into  and  knew  London  life  and 
society  from  such  songs,  sketches,  anecdotes,  books,  and  cari 
catures  as  I  met  with.  Others  read  and  forget  them,  but  I 
took  such  trifles  deep  into  my  soul  and  dwelt  on  them.  It  is 
only  of  late  years,  since  I  have  lived  in  England,  that  I  have 
learned  how  extensively — I  may  say  incredibly  well — I  was 
informed  for  my  age  as  to  many  phases  of  English  life.  Few 
of  us  know  what  may  be  got  out  of  reading  the  current  light 
literature  of  the  day,  if  we  only  read  it  earnestly  and  get  it 
by  heart.  This  I  did  to  a  great  extent,  as  my  reminiscences 
continually  awakened  in  England  prove. 

There  was  in  Dedham  a  very  old  house  of  somewhat  supe 
rior  style,  which  had  been  built,  if  not  in  1630,  at  least  within 
a  very  few  years  after.  It  was  inhabited  by  three  sisters 


EARLY  LIFE.  21 

named  Fairbanks,  who  were  very  peculiar  indeed,  and  their 
peculiarity  consisted  in  a  strange  devotion  to  the  past,  and 
above  all  to  old  English  memories  of  colonial  times  before 
the  Kevolution.  Even  in  England  this  resistance  can  hardly 
be  understood  at  the  present  day,  and  yet  it  may  still  be  found 
alive  in  New  England.  In  the  house  itself  was  a  well,  dug  to 
supply  water  when  besieged  by  Indians,  and  the  old  ladies 
used  to  exhibit  an  immense  old  gun  once  used  by  Puritans, 
and  an  ox-saddle  and  other  relics.  They  had  also  a  very 
ancient  book  of  prayer  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  an 
old  Bible,  and  thereby  hangs  a  tale.  They  were  all  still 
living  in  1849  or  1850,  when  I  visited  them  with  my  very 
pretty  cousin  Mary  Elizabeth  Fisher,  and  as  I  professed  the 
Episcopal  faith,  and  had  been  in  England,  the  precious  relics 
were  shown  to  me  as  to  one  of  the  initiated.  But  they  showed 
a  marked  aversion  to  letting  Miss  Fisher  see  them,  as  she  was 
a  Unitarian.  So  they  went  on,  as  many  others  did  in  my 
youth,  still  staunch  adherents  to  England,  nice  old  Tories, 
believers  in  the  King  or  Queen,  for  whom  they  prayed,  and 
not  in  the  President.  I  remember  that  Miss  Eliza  Leslie 
told  me  in  later  years  of  just  such  another  trio. 

My  grandfather  in  Holliston  was,  as  his  father  and  broth 
ers  and  uncles  had  all  been,  an  old  Eevolutionary  soldier, 
who  had  been  four  years  in  the  war  and  taken  part  in  many 
battles.  He  had  been  at  Princeton  (where  I  afterwards 
graduated)  and  Saratoga,  and  witnessed  the  surrender  of 
Burgoyne  to  Gates.  I  was  principally  concerned  to  know 
whether  the  conqueror  had  kept  the  sword  handed  to  him  on 
this  occasion,  and  was  rather  disappointed  to  learn  that  it 
was  given  back.  Once  I  found  in  the  garret  a  bayonet  which 
my  grandma  said  had  been  carried  by  grandfather  in  the 
war.  I  turned  it  with  a  broom-handle  into  a  lance  and  made 
ferocious  charges  on  the  cat  and  hens. 

This  grandfather,  Oliver  Leland,  exerted  an  extraordinary 
influence  on  me,  and  one  hard  to  describe.  He  was  great, 
grim,  and  taciturn  to  behold,  yet  with  a  good  heart,  and  not 


22  MEMOIRS. 

devoid  of  humour.  He  was  gouty,  and  yet  not  irritable.  He 
continually  recurs  to  me  while  reading  Icelandic  sagas,  and 
as  a  kind  of  man  who  would  now  be  quite  out  of  the  age  any 
where.  All  his  early  associations  had  been  of  war  and  a 
half-wild  life.  He  was  born  about  1758,  and  therefore  in  a 
rude  age  in  rural  New  England.  He,  I  may  say,  deeply  in 
terested  me. 

All  boys  are  naturally  full  of  the  romance  of  war ;  the 
Revolution  was  to  us  more  than  the  Crusades  and  all  chivalry 
combined,  and  my  grandfather  was  a  living  example  and 
chronicle  of  all  that  I  most  admired.  Often  I  sat  on  a  little 
cricket  at  his  feet,  and  listened  to  tales  of  battles,  scoutings, 
and  starving ;  how  he  had  been  obliged  to  live  on  raw  wheat, 
which  produced  evil  results,  and  beheld  General  Washington 
and  other  great  men,  and  had  narrow  escapes  from  Indians, 
and  been  at  the  capturing  of  a  fort  by  moonlight,  and  seen 
thousands  of  pounds'  worth  of  stores  destroyed.  I  frequently 
thought  of  old  grandfather  Oliver  when  "  out "  myself  during 
the  Civil  War,  and  was  half-starved  and  chilled  when  scout 
ing,  or  when  doing  rough  and  tough  in  West  Virginia. 

My  grandfather  often  told  me  such  stories  of  the  war, 
and  others  of  his  father  and  grandfather,  who  had  fought 
before  him  in  the  old  French  war  in  Canada,  and  how  the 
latter,  having  gone  up  to  trade  among  the  Indians  one  win 
ter,  endeared  himself  so  much  to  them  that  they  would  not 
let  him  go,  and  kept  him  a  captive  until  the  next  summer. 
I  came  across  traces  of  this  ancestor  in  an  old  Canadian  rec 
ord,  wherein  it  appears  that  he  once  officiated  as  interpreter 
in  the  French  and  Indian  tongues.  Whereby  critics  may  re 
mark  that  learning  French  and  Algonkin  runs  in  our  blood, 
and  that  my  proclivity  for  Indians  is  legitimately  inherited. 
I  would  that  I  knew  all  the  folklore  that  my  great-grandsire 
heard  in  the  Indian  wigwams  in  those  old  days ! 

I  can  remember  seeing  my  grandfather  once  sitting  and 
talking  with  five  other  veterans  of  the  war.  But  I  saw  them 
daily  in  those  times,  and  once  several  hundreds,  or  it  may  be 


EARLY  LIFE.  23 

thousands,  of  them  in  a  great  procession  in  Philadelphia  in 
1832.  And  here  I  may  mention  that  in  1834  I  often  saw  one 
named  Kice,  whose  age,  as  authenticated  by  his  pension  pa 
pers,  was  106,  and  that  in  1835  I  shook  hands  with  Thomas 
Hughes,  aged  95,  who  was  the  last  survivor  of  the  Boston 
Tea  party.  He  had  come  to  visit  our  school,  and  how  we 
boys  cheered  the  old  gentleman,  who  was  in  our  eyes  one  of 
the  greatest  men  alive  !  But  all  the  old  folk  in  my  boyhood 
could  tell  tales  of  the  Eevolution,  which  was  indeed  not  very 
much  older  then  than  the  Rebellion  is  to  us  now. 

I  can  also  recollect  seeing  Charles  Carroll  of  Carrollton, 
the  last  of  the  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
though  my  memory  of  the  man  is  now  confused  with  that  of 
a  very  perfect  portrait  which  belonged  to  his  granddaughter, 
Mrs.  Jackson,  who  was  a  next-door  but  one  neighbour  in  after 
years  in  Walnut  Street,  Philadelphia.  He  was  a  very  vener 
able-looking  man. 

My  father  served  for  a  short  time  in  the  war  of  1812,  and 
I  have  heard  him  relate  that  when  the  startling  news  of  peace 
arrived  in  Boston,  where  he  was,  he  at  once  took  a  sleigh  and 
fast  horses  and  drove  full  speed,  being  the  first  to  disseminate 
the  news  in  the  country.  That  was  as  good  as  Browning's 
"  Ride  to  Ghent "  in  its  way — apropos  of  which  Mr.  Brown 
ing  once  startled  me  by  telling  me,  "  I  suppose  you  know  that 
it  is  an  invention  of  mine,  and  not  founded  on  any  real  inci 
dent."  But  my  father's  headlong  sleigh-ride — he  was  young 
and  wild  in  those  days — was  real  and  romantic  enough  in  all 
conscience.  It  set  bells  to  ringing,  multitudes  to  cheering, 
bonfires  a-blazing  on  hills  and  in  towns,  and  also  some  few  to 
groaning,  as  happened  to  a  certain  old  deacon,  who  had  in 
vested  his  all  in  English  goods,  and  said,  when  he  heard  the 
cheers  caused  by  the  news,  "  Wife,  if  that's  war  news,  I'm 
saved  ;  but  if  it's  peace,  I'm  ruined  ! "  Even  so  it  befell  me, 
in  after  years,  to  be  the  first  person  to  announce  in  the  United 
States,  far  in  advance  of  any  others,  the  news  of  the  French 
Revolution  of  1848,  as  I  shall  fully  prove  in  the  sequence. 


24  MEMOIRS. 

It  may  be  here  remarked,  that,  though  not  "  profession 
als,"  all  of  our  family,  without  a  break  in  the  record,  have 
successively  taken  turns  at  fighting,  and  earned  our  pay  as 
soldiers,  since  time  lost  in  oblivion ;  for  I  and  my  brother 
tried  it  on  during  the  Rebellion,  wherein  he  indeed,  standing 
by  my  side,  got  the  wound  from  a  shell  of  which  he  event 
ually  died ;  while  there  were  none  who  were  not  in  the  old 
Indian  wars  or  the  English  troubles  of  Charles  the  Second 
and  First,  and  so  on  back,  I  dare  say,  to  the  days  of  Bussli 
de  Leland,  who  laid  all  Yorkshire  waste. 

My  grandfather,  though  not  wealthy,  owned  a  great  deal 
of  land,  and  I  can  remember  that  he  one  afternoon  showed 
me  a  road,  saying  that  he  owned  the  land  on  each  side  for  a 
mile.  I  myself,  in  after  years,  however,  came  to  own  in  fee- 
simple  a  square  mile  of  extremely  rich  land  in  Kansas,  which 
I  sold  for  sixteen  hundred  dollars,  while  my  grandfather's 
was  rather  of  that  kind  by  which  men's  poverty  was  measured 
in  Virginia — that  is  to  say,  the  more  laud  a  man  had  the 
poorer  he  was  considered  to  be.  It  is  related  of  one  of  these 
that  he  once  held  great  rejoicing  at  having  got  rid  of  a  vast 
property  by  the  ingenious  process  of  giving  some  person  one 
half  of  it  to  induce  him  to  take  the  other.  However,  as  there 
is  now  a  large  town  or  small  city  on  my  grandfather's  whi 
lom  estate,  I  wish  that  it  could  have  been  kept.  Mais  oil 
sont  Us  nciges  cVantan,  or  the  ducats  of  Panurge  ? 

There  was  a  "home-pasture,"  a  great  field  behind  my 
grandfather's  house,  where  I  loved  to  sit  alone,  and  which 
has  left  a  deep  impression  on  my  memory,  as  though  it  were 
a  fairy-haunted  or  imagined  place.  It  was  very  rocky,  the 
stones  being  covered  with  clean,  crisp,  dry  lichens,  and  in  one 
spot  there  was  the  gurgling  deep  down  in  some  crevice  of  a 
mysterious  unseen  spring  or  rivulet.  Young  as  I  was,  I  had 
met  with  a  line  which  bore  on  it — 

"  Deep  from  their  vaults  the  Loxian  murmurs  flow." 
And  there  was  something  very  voice-like  or  human  in  this 


EARLY  LIFE.  25 

murmur  or  chattering  of  the  unseen  brook.  This  I  dis 
tinctly  remember,  that  the  place  gave  me  not  only  a  feeling, 
but  a  faith  that  it  was  haunted  by  something  gentle  and 
merry.  I  went  there  many  a  time  for  company,  being  much 
alone.  An  Indian  would  have  told  me  that  it  was  the  Un  a 
games-sub — the  spirit-fairies  of  the  rock  and  stream.  These 
beings  enter  far  more  largely,  deeply,  and  socially  into  their 
life  or  faith  than  elves  or  fairies  ever  did  into  those  of  the 
Aryan  races,  and  I  might  well  have  been  their  protege,  for 
there  could  have  been  few  little  boys  living,  so  fond  as  I  was 
of  sitting  all  alone  by  rock  and  river,  hill  and  greenwood 
tree.  There  are  yet  in  existence  on  some  of  this  land  which 
was  once  ours  certain  mysterious  walls  or  relics  of  heavy 
stone-work,  which  my  friend  Eben  C.  Horsford  thinks  were 
made  by  the  Norsemen.  I  hope  that  they  were,  for  I  have 
read  many  a  saga  in  Icelandic,  old  Swedish,  and  Latin,  and 
the  romance  thereof  is  deep  in  my  soul;  and  as  my  own 
name  is  Godfrey,  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  god  Frey  and  his 
Freya  are  dear  to  me.  In  my  boyhood — and  it  may  be  still 
the  case — the  "  Injuns  "  got  the  credit  of  having  built  these 
mysterious  works. 

Not  far  from  Holliston  is  Mendon,  where  I  had  an  uncle, 
Seth  Davenport,  who  had  a  large,  pleasant,  old-fashioned 
New  England  farm,  which  was  more  productive  than  my 
grandfather's,  since  there  were  employed  on  it  sixteen  men, 
three  of  whom  were  Natick  Indians  of  the  old  local  stock. 
There  were  many  of  them  when  my  mother  was  young,  but  I 
suppose  that  the  last  of  the  tribe  has  long  since  died.  One 
of  these  Indians,  Rufus  Pease,  I  can  recall  as  looking  like  a 
dark-ruddy  gypsy,  with  a  pleasant  smile.  He  very  was  fond 
of  me.  He  belonged  to  a  well-known  family,  and  had  a 
brother — and  thereby  hangs  a  tale,  or,  in  this  case,  a  scalp- 
lock. 

"  Marm  "  Pease,  the  mother  of  Rufus,  had  on  one  occa 
sion  been  confined,  and  old  Doctor — I  forget  his  name — who 
officiated  at  the  birth,  had  been  asked  to  give  the  infant  a 


26  MEMOIRS. 

name.  Now  he  was  a  dry  wag,  of  the  kind  so  dear  to  Dr. 
llolmes,  and  expressed  much  gratification  and  gratitude  at 
such  a  compliment  being  paid  to  him.  "  He  had  long  been 
desirous,"  he  said,  "  of  naming  a  child  after  his  dear  old 
friend,  Dr.  Green."  So  the  name  was  bestowed,  the  simple 
Indians  not  realising  for  some  time  after  the  christening  that 
their  youngest  bore  the  name  of  Green  Pease.  Whether  he 
was  ever  called  a  duck,  I  know  not. 

Everything  about  Uncle  Seth  and  Aunt  Betsy  was,  as  I 
remember,  delightfully  comfortable,  old-fashioned,  and  in  a 
way  beautiful.  There  was  their  daughter  Eebecca,  who  was 
pretty  and  gentle,  so  that  several  wild  birds  came  every  morn 
ing  to  feed  from  her  hand  and  perch  on  her  fingers.  Uncle 
Seth  himself  wore  a  scarlet  waistcoat,  and,  as  I  recall  him, 
seemed  altogether  in  figure  to  belong  to  the  time  of  Crom 
well,  or  to  earlier  days.  There  was  a  hall,  hung  round  with 
many  old  family  portraits  in  antique  dresses,  and  an  immense 
dairy — the  pride  of  Aunt  Betsy's  heart — and  a  garden,  in 
which  I  was  once  shown  a  humming-bird's  nest ;  and  cousin 
Eebecca's  mantelpiece,  over  a  vast  old  fireplace,  heaped  with 
mosses,  birds'  nests,  shells,  and  such  curiosities  as  a  young 
girl  would  gather  in  the  woods  and  fields ;  and  the  cider- 
press,  in  which  Uncle  Seth  ground  up  the  sixteen  hundred 
bushels  of  apples  which  he  had  at  one  crop,  and  the  new 
cider  gushing  in  a  stream,  whereof  I  had  a  taste.  It  was  a 
charming,  quiet  old  homestead,  in  which  books  and  culture 
were  not  wanting,  and  it  has  all  to  me  now  something  of 
the  chiaroscuro  and  Eembrandt  colour  and  charm  of  the 
Mdhrchen  or  fairy-tale.  The  reality  of  this  charm  is  apt 
to  go  out  of  life  as  that  of  literature  or  culture  comes  in. 
To  this  day  I  draw  the  deepest  impression  or  sentiment 
of  the  pantheism  or  subtle  spiritual  charm  of  Nature  far 
more  from  these  early  experiences  of  rural  life  than  from 
all  the  books,  poetry  included,  which  I  have  ever  perused. 
Note  this  well,  ye  whose  best  feelings  are  only  a  rechauffe 
of  Euskin  and  Browning — secundcm  ordinem — for  I  observe 


EARLY  LIFE.  27 

that  those  who  do  not  think  at  second  hand  are  growing 
rare. 

In  the  town  of  Milford  lived  my  uncle,  William  Godfrey, 
with  my  aunt  Nancy,  and  of  them  and  their  home  I  have 
many  pleasant  memories.  The  very  first  of  them  all  was  not 
so  pleasant  to  me  at  the  time.  My  parents  had  just  arrived, 
and  had  not  been  ten  minutes  in  the  house  ere  a  tremendous 
squall  was  heard,  and  my  mother,  looking  from  the  window, 
beheld  me  standing  in  the  open  barn-door  holding  a  tiny 
chicken  in  my  right  hand,  while  an  old  hen  sat  on  my  head 
napping  her  wings  and  pecking  me  in  wrath.  I,  seeing  the 
brood,  had  forthwith  captured  one,  and  for  that  was  under 
going  penance.  It  was  a  beautiful  tableau,  which  was  never 
forgotten !  We  went  there  on  visits  for  many  summers. 
Uncle  William  was  a  kind-hearted,  "  sportive "  man,  who 
took  BelVs  Life,  and  I  can  remember  that  there  was  a  good 
supply  of  English  reading  in  the  house.  My  uncle  had  three 
sons,  all  much  older  than  I.  The  eldest,  Stearns,  was  said  to 
have  first  popularised  the  phrase  "  posted  up,"  to  signify  well- 
informed.  The  second,  Benjamin,  became  in  after  years  a 
great  manufacturer  and  somewhat  noted  politician,  and  owner 
of  a  famous  racehorse.  The  third,  Samuel,  went  into  busi 
ness  in  Philadelphia,  and  crossed  the  Atlantic  with  me.  He 
died  quite  young.  All  of  them,  like  their  father  and  grand 
father,  were  very  good-natured  or  gentle,  and  men  of  perfect 
integrity.  The  Lelauds,  however,  were  rather  dour  and  grim 
in  their  honesty,  or  more  Northern  than  the  Godfreys.  This 
was  accounted  for  by  the  fact,  that  while  my  father's  family 
was  Puritan  of  the  purest,  and  only  intermarried  with  Puri 
tan  stock,  the  Godfreys  had  in  Rhode  Island  received  an  in 
fusion  of  French  Huguenot  blood,  which  was  indeed  very 
perceptible  in  their  faces  and  lively  pleasant  manner. 

There  was  a  strange  tradition,  to  which  my  mother  some 
times  jestingly  referred,  that  there  had  been  among  her 
Rhode  Island  ancestors  a  High  German  (i.  e.,  not  a  Hol 
lander)  doctor,  who  had  a  reputation  as  a  sorcerer  or  wizard. 


28  MEMOIRS. 

Ho  was  a  man  of  learning,  but  that  is  all  I  ever  heard  about 
him.  My  mother's  opinion  was  that  this  was  a  very  strong 
case  of  atavism,  and  that  the  mysterious  ancestor  had  through 
the  ages  cropped  out  again  in  me.  Something  tells  me  that 
this  was  the  High  German  doctor  who,  according  to  Wash 
ington  Irving,  laid  the  mystic  spell  on  Sleepy  Hollow,  which 
made  of  it  such  a  pleasant,  ancient,  dreamy  fairy-land. 
Whether  his  friendly  spirit  still  watches  over  me,  or  whether 
I  am  the  man  himself,  is  a  problem  which  I  leave  to  my 
friend  Francis  Galton,  who  indeed  personally  often  reminds 
me  of  Irving.  High  German  sorcerers  were  not  common  in 
those  days  north  of  Pennsylvania,  so  that  I  trow  mine  was 
the  very  man  referred  to  by  Geoffrey  Crayon.  And  it  is  true 
beyond  all  doubt  that  even  in  infancy,  as  I  have  often  heard, 
there  was  a  quaint  uncanniiiess,  as  of  something  unknown, 
in  my  nature,  and  that  I  differed  in  the  main  totally  from 
every  relative,  and  indeed  from  any  other  little  boy,  known 
to  anybody ;  though  I  was  a  perfect  Godfrey  in  face  when 
very  young,  as  I  am  now  a  typical  Leland.  I  was  always 
given  to  loneliness  in  gardens  and  woods  when  I  could  get 
into  them,  and  to  hearing  words  in  birds'  songs  and  running 
or  falling  water ;  and  I  once  appalled  a  visitor  by  professing 
seriously  that  I  could  determine  for  him  some  question  as  to 
what  would  happen  to  him  by  divination  with  a  bullet  in  an 
Indian  moccasin.  We  had  two  servants  who  spoke  old  Irish ; 
one  was  an  inexhaustible  mine  of  legends,  which  she  related 
to  me — she  surpassed  Croker;  the  other,  less  versed,  still 
knew  a  great  deal,  and  told  me  how  her  own  father,  Jackcy 
Mooney,  had  seen  the  fairies  with  his  own  eyes.  Both  of 
these  sincerely  and  seriously  regarded  me  as  "  gifted "  or 
elfin-favoured,  and  the  latter  said  in  proof  thereof,  "  Only  lis 
ten  to  his  voice ;  sure  whin  he  spakes  he'd  while  a  burred  aff 
a  tree."  For  my  uncanny  ways  made  a  deep  impression  on 
them,  as  also  on  the  darkies. 

Once  I  had  a  wonderful  dream.     I  thought  that  I  was  in 
Dr.  Furness's  chapel,  but  that,  instead  of  the  gentle  reverend 


EARLY  LIFE.  29 

clergyman,  the  devil  himself  was  in  the  pulpit  preaching. 
Feeling  myself  inspired,  I  went  up  into  the  pulpit,  threw  the 
Evil  One  out,  and  preached  myself  in  his  place.  Now  our 
nurse  had  a  dream-book,  and  made  some  pretence  to  mystic 
fairy  knowledge  learned  in  Kilkenny,  and  she  interpreted 
this  dream  as  signifying  that  I  would  greatly  rise  in  this 
world,  and  do  strange  things.  But  she  was  greatly  struck 
with  such  a  vision  in  such  an  infant. 

Now,  I  was  a  great  reader  of  Scripture ;  in  fact,  I  learned 
a  great  deal  too  much  of  it,  believing  now  that  for  babes  and 
sucklings  about  one-third  of  it  had  better  be  expurgated. 
The  Apocrypha  was  a  favourite  work,  but  above  all  I  loved 
the  Revelations,  a  work  which,  I  may  say  by  the  way,  is 
still  a  treasure  to  be  investigated  as  regards  the  marvellous 
mixture  of  Neo-Platonic,  later  Egyptian  (or  Gnostic),  and 
even  Indian  Buddhistic  ideas  therein.  Well,  I  had  learned 
from  it  a  word  which  St.  John  applies  (to  my  mind  very 
vulgarly  and  much  too  frequently)  to  the  Scarlet  Lady  of 
Babylon  or  Eome.  What  this  word  meant  I  did  not  know, 
but  this  I  understood,  that  it  was  "  sass  "  of  some  kind,  as 
negroes  term  it,  and  so  one  day  I  applied  it  experimentally 
to  my  nurse.  Though  the  word  was  not  correctly  pro 
nounced,  for  I  had  never  heard  it  from  anybody,  its  success 
was  immediate,  but  not  agreeable.  The  passionate  Irish 
woman  flew  into  a  great  rage  and  declared  that  she  would 
"  lave  the  house."  My  mother,  called  in,  investigated  the 
circumstances,  and  found  that  I  really  had  no  idea  whatever 
of  the  meaning  of  what  I  had  said.  Peace  was  restored,  but 
Annie  declared  that  only  the  divil  or  the  fairies  could  have 
inspired  such  an  infant  to  use  such  language. 

I  was  very  fond  of  asking  my  nurse  to  sing  in  old  Irish  or 
to  teach  me  Irish  words.  This  she  did,  but  agreed  with  her 
sister  Biddy  that  it  was  all  very  uncanny,  and  that  there 
must  have  been  a  time  when  I  was  perfectly  familiar  with 
the  owld  language,  as  I  had  such  unearthly  fondness  for  it. 

I  must  have  been  about  seven  years  old  when  my  parents 


30  MEMOIRS. 

took  a  house  in  Arch  Street,  above  Ninth  Street,  Phila 
delphia.  Here  my  life  begins  to  be  more  marked  and  dis 
tinct.  I  was  at  first  sent,  i.  e.,  walked  daily  to  the  school  of 
Jacob  Pierce,  a  worthy  Quaker,  who  made  us  call  him  Jacob, 
and  who  carefully  taught  us  all  the  ordinary  branches,  and 
gave  us  excellent  lectures  on  natural  philosophy  and  chem 
istry  with  experiments,  and  encouraged  us  to  form  mineralo- 
gical  collections,  but  who  objected  to  our  reading  history, 
"  because  there  were  so  many  battles  in  it."  In  which  system 
of  education  all  that  is  good  and  bad,  or  rather  weak,  in 
Quakerism  is  fully  summed  up.  Like  the  Eoman  Catholic, 
it  is  utterly  unfit  for  all  the  world,  and  incapable  of  grap 
pling  with  or  adapting  itself  to  the  natural  expansion  of 
science  and  the  human  mind.  Thus  the  Quaker  garb,  which 
was  originally  intended  by  its  simplicity  to  avoid  the  appear 
ance  of  eccentricity  or  peculiarity  (most  dress  in  the  time  of 
the  Stuarts  being  extravagant),  has  now  become,  by  merely 
sticking  to  old  custom,  the  most  eccentric  dress  known.  The 
school  was  in  a  very  large  garden,  in  which  was  a  gymnasium, 
and  in  the  basement  of  the  main  building  there  was  a  car 
penter's  shop  with  a  turning-lathe,  where  boys  were  allowed 
to  work  as  a  reward  for  good  conduct. 

I  could  never  learn  the  multiplication  table.  There  are 
things  which  the  mind,  like  the  stomach,  spasmodically  re 
jects  without  the  least  perceptible  cause  or  reason.  So  I 
have  found  it  to  be  with  certain  words  which  will  not  be  re 
membered.  There  was  one  Arab  word  which  I  verily 
believe  I  looked  out  one  hundred  times  in  the  dictionary,  and 
repeated  a  thousand,  yet  never  could  keep  it.  Every  teacher 
should  be  keen  to  detect  these  antipathies,  and  cure  them  by 
gentle  and  persuasive  means.  Unfortunately  no  one  in  my 
youth  knew  any  better  way  to  overcome  them  than  by 
"  keeping  me  in  "  after  school  to  study,  when  I  was  utterly 
weary  and  worn — a  very  foolish  punishment,  as  is  depriving 
a  boy  of  his  meals,  or  anything  else  levelled  at  Nature.  I 
think  there  must  have  been  many  months  of  time,  and  of 


EARLY  LIFE.  31 

as  much  vain  and  desperate  effort  on  my  part  to  remember, 
wasted  on  my  early  arithmetic.  Now  I  can  see  that  by 
rewards  or  inducements,  and  by  the  very  simple  process 
of  only  learning  "  one  time  one  is  one  "  for  the  first  lesson, 
and  that  and  one  line  more  for  the  second,  I  could  have 
mastered  the  whole  book  in  time.  But  oh  !  the  weary,  dreary 
days,  and  the  sad  waste  of  time,  and  the  anxious  nervous  suf 
fering,  which  arithmetic  cost  me  in  my  youth,  and  mathe 
matics  in  after  years ! 

But  there  was  one  class  at  Jacob's  in  which  I  was  facile- 
princeps  and  habitual  past-grand-master.  This  was  the  class 
which  was,  like  the  professorship  of  Diogenes  Teufelsdrockh, 
for  Matters  and  Things  in  General.  That  is  to  say,  we  read 
aloud  from  some  book — it  may  have  been  selections  from 
English  writers — and  then  Jacob,  picking  out  the  hard  words 
or  facts  or  phrases,  required  of  them  definition  or  explanation. 
One  day  there  arose  in  these  questions  a  sum  in  arithmetic, 
when  I  shot  down  to  the  tail  of  the  class  as  a  plummet  drops 
to  the  bottom  of  the  well.  I  shall  never  forget  the  proud 
fierce  impatience  which  I  felt,  like  an  imprisoned  chieftain 
who  knows  that  he  will  speedily  be  delivered  and  take  dire 
vengeance  on  his  foes.  I  had  not  long  to  wait.  " '  Refec 
tory,'  what  is  a  'refectory'?  Hillburn  Jones,  does  thee 
know  ?  Joseph  Widdifield,  does  thee  ?  "  But  none  of  them 
knew  till  it  came  to  me  "down  tail,"  when  I  cried  "An 
oyster-cellar."  "  That  is  quite  right,  Charley ;  thee  can  go 
up  head,"  said  Jacob,  and  as  I  passed  Hillburn  Jones  he 
whispered,  half  in  fun,  half  enviously,  the  Kemble  Eefectory." 
This  was  an  oyster-cellar  which  had  been  recently  opened 
under  the  Arch  Street  Theatre,  and  whence  Hillburn  and 
I  had  derived  our  knowledge  of  the  word,  the  difference 
being  that  I  remembered  more  promptly  and  risked  more 
boldly.  But  I  missed  it  one  day  when  I  defined  a  peasant 
as  "  a  nest  full  of  young  birds ; "  the  fact  being  that  I  re 
called  a  picture  in  ^Esop's  fables,  and  confused  peasant  with 
pheasant.  One  day  Jacob  rebuked  the  class  for  letting  me 


32  MEMOIRS. 

always  be  at  their  head,  when  Ilillburn  Jones,  who  was  a  very 
honest  little  boy,  said,  "  Indeed,  Jacob,  thee  must  know  that 
all  that  we  do  know,  Charley  tells  us."  For  I  was  already 
an  insatiable  reader,  and  always  recalling  what  I  read, 
and  always  communicating  my  knowledge  to  others  in  the 
form  of  small  lectures.  I  had  a  book  of  Scripture  stories, 
with  a  picture  of  Pharoah  in  his  chariot,  with  the  title, 
"  Pharaoh's  host  sunk  in  the  Red  Sea."  Hence  I  concluded 
that  a  host  was  a  vehicle  of  a  very  superior  description.  A 
carriage-builder  in  our  neighbourhood  had  executed  a  chaise 
of  very  unusual  magnificence,  and  as  I  stood  admiring  it  I 
informed  Ilillburn  that  this  was  what  was  called  by  the 
learned  a  host,  and  that  it  was  in  such  a  host  that  Pharaoh 
perished.  I  remember  elevating  my  voice  somewhat  for  the 
benefit  of  a  bystander,  being  somewhat  proud  of  this  bit  of 
knowledge. 

Unfortunately,  not  only  my  father,  but  also  my  teacher, 
and  with  them  the  entire  population  of  North  America,  in 
those  days  regarded  a  good  knowledge  of  arithmetic  as  form 
ing  nine-tenths  of  all  that  was  most  needful  in  education, 
while  indulgence  in  a  taste  for  general  information,  and 
"literature"  especially,  was  glared  at  with  a  very  evil  eye 
indeed,  as  tending  to  injure  a  "practical  business  man." 
That  there  could  be  any  kind  of  profitable  or  respectable  call 
ing  not  based  upon  arithmetic  did  not  enter  into  the  heart 
of  man  to  conceive,  while  among  the  bankers  and  merchants 
of  Boston,  New  York,  or  Philadelphia  there  was  a  deeply- 
seated  conviction  that  even  a  wealthy  and  successful  editor, 
literary  man,  or  artist,  was  really  an  inferior  as  compared  to 
themselves.  As  this  sublime  truth  was  severely  rubbed  into 
me  several  times  daily  during  the  greater  portion  of  my 
youthful  life,  and  as  in  its  earlier  stage  I  rarely  met  with  a 
man  grown  who  did  not  look  down  on  me  as  an  unfortunate 
non-arithmetical,  unbusinesslike  creature,  and  let  me  know  it 
too,  I  very  naturally  grew  up  with  a  low  estimate  of  my  own 
capacities  ;  and  as  I  was  proud  and  sensitive,  this  was  to  me 


EARLY  LIFE.  33 

a  source  of  much  suffering,  which  often  became  terrible  as  I 
advanced  in  years.  But  at  that  time  the  position  of  the 
literary  man  or  scholar,  with  the  exception  of  a  very  few 
brilliant  magnates  who  had  "made  money,"  was  in  the 
United  States  not  an  enviable  one.  Serious  interest  in  art 
and  letters  was  not  understood,  or  so  generally  sympathised 
with,  as  it  now  is  in  "  Quakerdelphia."  There  was  a  gentle 
man  in  Philadelphia  who  was  a  scholar,  and  who  having  lived 
long  abroad,  had  accumulated  a  very  curious  black-letter  and 
rariora  library.  For  a  long  time  I  observed  that  this  library 
was  never  mentioned  in  polite  circles  without  significant 
smiles.  One  day  I  heard  a  lady  say  very  meaningly,  "I  sup 
pose  that  you  know  what  kind  of  books  he  has  and  how  he 
obtained  them?"  So  I  inquired  very  naturally  if  he  had 
come  by  them  dishonestly.  To  which  the  reply,  half-whis 
pered  in  my  ear  lest  it  should  be  overheard,  was,  "  They  say 
his  books  are  all  old  things,  which  he  did  not  buy  at  any  first- 
class  stores,  but  picked  up  at  old  stalls  and  in  second-hand 
shops  at  less  than  their  value  ;  in  fact,  they  did  not  cost  him 
much." 

Yet  these  remarks  must  not  be  regarded  as  too  sweeping 
or  general.  Firstly,  I  am  speaking  of  sixty  years  since. 
Secondly,  there  were  many  people  of  literary  tastes  in  Phila 
delphia — a  little  isolated,  it  is  true ;  and  finally,  there  was  a 
great  culture  of  science,  founded  by  Franklin,  and  fostered 
by  the  medical  schools.  I  could  cite  a  brilliant  array  of 
names  of  men  distinguished  in  these  matters.  What  I  am 
writing  is  simply  a  sincere  record  of  my  own — somewhat 
peculiar — or  personal  experiences.  There  are  doubtless  many 
who  would  write  very  differently.  And  now  times  are  very 
greatly  changed. 

I  have  again  a  quaint  early  reminiscence.  It  would  hap 
pen  that  now  and  then  a  new  carriage,  always  of  the  same 
sober  description,  with  two  very  good,  but  seldom  showy, 
horses  would  appear  in  the  streets.  Then  its  owner  would 
be  greeted  on  Market  Street  with  the  remark,  "  Well,  Sammy, 


34  MEMOIRS. 

I  see  thee's  got  thee  fifty  thousand  dollars."  This  sum — ten 
thousand  pounds — constituted  the  millionaireism  or  moneyed 
aristocracy  of  those  days.  *  On  it,  with  a  thriving  business, 
Samuel  could  maintain  a  family  in  good  fashion,  and  above 
all,  in  great  comfort,  which  was  sensibly  regarded  as  better 
than  fashion  or  style.  Fifty  thousand  dollars  entitled  a  man 
to  keep  a  carriage  and  be  classed  as  "  quality  "  by  the  negroes. 

It  may  be  worth  noting  that  although  the  Quakers  did 
not  allow  the  piano  in  their  families,  as  being  too  worldly,  they 
compromised  by  having  musical  boxes.  And  I  have  heard 
that  in  the  country,  where  still  older  fashioned  ideas  pre 
vailed,  the  one  bit  of  finery  allowed  to  a  Quaker  damsel  was 
a  red  ribbon ;  but  it  must  be  red,  not  of  any  other  colour. 

Let  it  be  remembered  that  at  this  time  Philadelphia,  and 
even  the  world,  were  as  yet  to  a  great  degree  in  the  Middle 
Ages  as  compared  to  the  present  day.  AVe  had  few  steam 
boats,  and  no  railroads,  or  telephones,  or  percussion-caps,  or 
a  tremendous  press,  or  Darwinism,  or  friction  matches.  Even 
the  introduction  of  ice-cream,  and  stone  coal  as  fuel,  and 
grates  was  within  the  memory  of  our  elders.  Apropos  of 
matches,  the  use  of  tinderbox  and  brimstone  matches  was 
universal ;  bold  young  men  had  tinder  pistols ;  but  the  wood 
fire  was  generally  kept  under  ashes  all  night,  and  I  can  well 
remember  how  our  negro  servants,  Avhen  it  had  gone  out, 
were  used  early  on  winter  mornings  to  borrow  a  shovelful  of 
coals  from  the  cook  of  our  next-door  neighbour,  and  how  it 
was  handed  over  the  garden  fence,  the  recipient  standing  on 
our  pump  handle  and  the  donor  on  hers. 

I  forget  in  what  year  the  railroad  (with  locomotives)  was 
first  built  from  Philadelphia  to  Columbia,  a  distance  of  sixty 
miles.  I  believe  it  was  the  first  real  road  of  the  kind  in 
America.  On  the  day  when  the  first  train  ran,  the  City 
Council  and  certain  honoured  guests  made  the  journey,  and 
among  them  was  my  father,  who  took  me  with  him.  There 
were  only  a  few  miles  of  the  road  then  completed.  It  was  a 
stupendous  marvel  to  me,  and  all  this  being  drawn  by  steam, 


EARLY  LIFE.  35 

and  by  a  great  terrible  iron  monster  of  a  machine.  And 
there  was  still  in  all  souls  a  certain  unearthly  awe  of  the  re 
cently  invented  and  as  yet  rather  rare  steamboats.  I  can 
(strangely  enough)  still  recall  this  feeling  by  a  mental  effort 
— this  meeting  the  Horror  for  the  first  time  !  My  father  re 
membered,  and  had  been  in  the  first  steamboat  which  was  a 
success  on  the  Delaware.  I  saw  its  wreck  in  after  years  at 
Hoboken.  The  earlier  boat  made  by  John  Fitch  is  still  pre 
served  in  Bordentown. 

I  can  remember  that  when  gas  was  introduced  to  light 
the  city,  it  was  done  under  a  fearful  opposition.  All  the 
principal  people  signed  a  petition  against  it.  I  saw  the  paper. 
It  would  burst  and  kill  myriads;  it  was  poisonous;  and, 
finally,  it  would  ruin  the  oil  trade.  However,  we  got  it  at 
last.  Somebody  had  invented  hand  gas-lamps;  they  were 
sold  in  the  Arcade ;  and  as  one  of  these  had  burst,  it  was 
naturally  supposed  that  the  gasworks  would  do  the  same. 

The  characteristics  of  old  Philadelphia  were  in  those  days 
so  marked,  and  are,  withal,  so  sweet  to  the  memory,  that  I 
cannot  help  lingering  on  them.  As  Washington  Irving  says 
of  the  Golden  Age  of  Wouter  van  Twiller,  "  Happy  days 
when  the  harvest  moon  was  twice  as  large  as  now,  when  the 
shad  were  all  salmon,  and  peace  was  in  the  land."  Trees 
grew  abundantly  in  rows  in  almost  every  street — one  before 
every  house.  I  had  two  before  mine  till  1892,  when  the 
Street  Commissioners  heartlessly  ordained  that  one  must  be 
cut  down  and  removed,  and  charged  me  ten  dollars  for  doing 
it.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  since  Street  Commissioners  have 
found  this  so  profitable,  trees  have  disappeared  with  sad  ra 
pidity.  Then  at  twilight  the  pea-ale  of  the  night-hawk  could 
be  heard  all  over  Arasapha,  which  is  the  Indian  name  for  the 
place  where  our  city  stands ;  there  were  in  Coaquannoc,  or 
the  Schuylkill,  abundant  gold  fish  and  perch,  of  which  I 
angled  divers.  Yes,  there  was,  and  still  is,  a  Fisher  Club, 
which  claims  to  be  the  oldest  gentleman's  club  in  Anglo- 
Saxony,  and  which  has  for  two  centuries  brewed  for  itself  a 


36  MEMOIRS. 

"  fish-house  punch "  as  delicious  as  that  of  London  civic 
banquets.  There  be  no  fish  in  the  fair  river  now ;  they  have 
all  vanished  before  the  combined  forces  of  petroleum  and  the 
offal  of  factories  and  mines,  but  the  Fish-House  Club  still  has 
its  merry  banquets  in  its  ancient  home ;  for,  as  the  French 
say,  "Chacun  peche  a  sa  maniere."  In  graveyards  lone  or 
over  gardens  green  glittered  of  summer  nights  millions  of 
fireflies ;  there  was  the  scent  of  magnolias,  roses,  pinks,  and 
honeysuckles  by  every  house ;  for  Philadelphians  have  always 
had  a  passion  for  flowers,  and  there  never  was  a  Quaker,  much 
less  a  Quakeress,  who  has  not  studied  botany,  and  wandered 
in  Bartram's  Garden  and  culled  blue  gentians  in  the  early 
fall,  or  lilies  wild  in  Wissahickon's  shade.  There  still  re 
mains  a  very  beautiful  relic  of  this  olden  time  in  the  old 
Swedes  Church,  which  every  stranger  should  visit.  It  is  a 
quaint  structure  of  more  than  two  hundred  years,  and  in  its 
large  churchyard  (which  is  not,  like  Karamsin's  graves,  "  de 
serted  and  drear,"  but  charming  and  garden-like)  one  can 
imagine  himself  in  rural  England. 

In  the  spring  of  the  year  there  was  joyous  activity  on  the 
Delaware,  even  in  town ;  for,  as  the  song  hath  it — 

"  Do  fishiu'  time  hab  come  at  last, 
De  winter  all  am  gone  and  past ; " 

and  there  was  the  casting  of  immense  seines  and  the  catching 
of  myriads  of  shad,  the  typical  fish  or  emblem  of  the  Quaker 
Philadelphian,  because  in  the  profile  outline  of  the  shad  peo 
ple  professed  to  discern  the  form  according  to  which  the 
Quaker  coat  was  cut.  With  the  shad  were  many  herring,  and 
now  and  then  a  desperate  giant  of  a  sturgeon,  who  in  his 
struggles  would  give  those  concerned  enough  to  do.  Then 
the  yells  of  the  black  fishermen,  the  flapping  of  the  horny 
knife-backed  prey — often  by  the  flashing  of  a  night-fire — 
formed  a  picture  worthy  of  Eembrandt.  Apropos  of  these 
sturgeon,  the  fresh  caviare  or  roe  (which  has  been  pronounced 
at  St.  Petersburg  to  surpass  the  Russian)  was  always  thrown 


EARLY  LIFE.  37 

away,  as  was  often  the  case  with  sweetbreads,  which  were 
rarely  eaten.  But  if  the  caviare  or  roe  was  really  in  those 
days  "  caviare  to  the  general "  multitude,  the  nose  of  the  fish 
was  not,  it  being  greatly  coveted  by  us  small  boys  wherewith 
to  make  a  ball  for  "  shinny,"  which  for  some  occult  reason 
was  preferred  to  any  other.  Old  people  of  my  acquaintance 
could  remember  when  seals  had  been  killed  at  Cape  May  be 
low  the  city,  and  how  on  one  or  two  occasions  a  bewildered 
whale  of  no  small  dimensions  had  found  its  way  to  Burling 
ton,  some  miles  above. 

Now  and  then  there  would  be  found  in  the  bay  below  the 
city  a  tremendous,  square-shaped,  hideous,  unnatural  pisca 
torial  monster,  known  as  a  devil-fish,  or  briefly  devil.  It  was 
a  legend  of  my  youth  that  two  preachers  or  ministers  of  the 
Presbyterian  faith  once  went  fishing  in  those  waters,  and 
having  cast  out  a  stout  line,  fastened  to  the  mast,  for  shark, 
were  amazed  at  finding  themselves  all  at  once  careering 
through  the  waves  at  terrible  speed,  being  dragged  by  one  of 
the  diabolical  "  monsters  of  the  roaring  deep  "  above  men 
tioned.  Whereupon  a  friend,  who  was  in  the  boat,  burst 
out  laughing.  And  being  asked,  "  Wherefore  this  unre^ 
strained  hilarity?"  replied,  "  Is  it  not  enough  to  make  a  man 
laugh  to  see  the  Devil  running  away  with  two  clergymen  ?  " 

There  was  a  very  excellent  and  extensive  museum  of  Mat 
ters  aud  Things  in  General,  founded  by  an  ancient  artist 
named  Peale,  who  was  the  head-central  charm  and  delight  of 
all  young  Philadelphia  in  those  days,  and  where,  when  we 
had  been  good  all  the  week,  we  were  allowed  to  repair  on 
Saturday  afternoons.  And  here  I  may  say  by  the  way,  that 
miscellaneous  collections  of  "  curiosities,"  oddities,  and  relics 
are  far  more  attractive  to  children,  and  stimulate  in  them 
far  more  interest  and  inquisitiveness  and  desire  for  general 
information,  than  do  the  best  scientific  collections,  where 
everything  is  ranked  and  numbered,  and  wherein  even  an 
Etruscan  tiara  or  a  Viking's  sword  loses  much  of  its  charm 
when  placed  simply  as  a  "  specimen  "  in  a  row  of  others  of 


38  MEMOIRS. 

the  kind.  I  am  not  arguing  here  in  the  least  against  scien 
tific  or  properly  arranged  archaeologic  collections,  but  to  de 
clare  the  truth  that  for  children  museums  of  the  despised 
curiosities  are  far  more  attractive  and  infinitely  more  useful. 

I  owe  so  very  much  myself  to  the  old  Peale's  Museum ;  it 
served  to  stimulate  to  such  a  remarkable  degree  my  interest 
in  antiquities  and  my  singular  passion  for  miscellaneous  in 
formation,  and  it  aided  me  so  much  in  my  reading,  that  I 
cannot  pass  it  by  without  a  tribute  to  its  memory.  How 
often  have  I  paused  in  its  dark  galleries  in  awe  before  the 
tremendous  skeleton  of  the  Mammoth — how  small  did  that 
of  a  great  elephant  seem  beside  it — and  recalled  the  Indian 
legend  of  it  recorded  by  Franklin.  And  the  stuffed  monkeys 
— one  shaving  another — what  exquisite  humour,  which  never 
palled  upon  us  !  No  ;  that  was  the  museum  for  us,  and  the 
time  will  come  when  there  will  be  such  collections  made  ex 
pressly  for  the  young. 

"  Stuffed  monkey  "  was  a  common  by-word,  by  the  way, 
for  a  conceited  fellow.  Therefore  the  Louisville  Journal, 
speaking  of  a  rival  sheet,  said  :  "  Header,  if  you  will  go  into  the 
Louisville  Museum,  you  will  see  two  stuffed  monkeys  reading 
the  Courier.  And  if  you  will  then  go  into  the  office  of  the 
Louisville  Courier,  you  may  see  two  living  stuffed  monkeys 
editing  the  same."  The  beautiful  sallies  of  this  kind  which 
appeared  in  these  two  newspapers  for  years  would  make  a 
lively  volume. 

Never  shall  I  forget  one  evening  alone  in  that  Museum. 
I  had  come  with  Jacob  Pierce's  school,  and  strayed  off  alone 
into  some  far-away  and  fascinating  nook,  forgetful  of  friends 
and  time.  All  the  rest  had  departed  homewards,  and  I 
sought  to  find  them.  The  dark  evening  shades  were  casting 
sombre  tones  in  the  galleries — I  was  a  very  little  boy  of  seven 
or  eight — and  the  stuffed  lions  and  bears  and  wolves  seemed 
looming  or  glooming  into  mysterious  life  ;  the  varnished 
sharks  and  hideous  shiny  crocodiles  had  a  light  of  awful  in- 
tplligence  in  their  eyes;  the  gigantic  anaconda  had  long 


EARLY  LIFE.  39 

awaited  me  ;  the  grim  hyaena  marked  me  for  his  own ;  even 
deer  and  doves  seemed  uncanny  and  goblined.  At  this  long 
interval  of  sixty  years,  I  can  recall  the  details  of  that  walk, 
and  every  object  which  impressively  half-appalled  me,  and 
how  what  had  been  a  museum  had  become  a  chamber  of 
horrors,  yet  not  without  a  wild  and  awful  charm.  Of  course 
I  lost  my  way  in  the  shades,  and  was  beginning  to  speculate 
on  having  to  pass  a  night  among  the  monsters,  and  how 
much  there  would  be  left  for  my  friends  to  mourn  over  in 
the  morning,  when — Eureka  !  Thalatta  ! — I  beheld  the  gate 
of  entrance  and  exit,  and  made  my  latter  as  joyously  as  ever 
did  the  souls  who  were  played  out  of  Inferno  by  the  old  rep 
robate  of  the  Eoman  tale. 

Since  that  adventure  I  never  mentioned  it  to  a  living 
soul  till  now,  and  yet  there  is  not  an  event  of  my  life  so 
vividly  impressed  on  my  memory. 

My  father  took  me  very  rarely  to  the  theatre ;  but  my 
Quaker  school-mates  had  never  seen  the  inside  of  such  places 
at  all,  and  therefore  listened  greedily  to  what  I  could  tell 
them  of  the  sights.  One  of  the  wonders  of  my  youth  was 
the  seeing  the  great  elephant  Columbus  perform  in  a  play 
called  "  The  Englishman  in  Siam."  It  was  indeed  very 
curious,  and  it  is  described  as  such  in  works  on  natural  his 
tory.  And  I  saw  Edwin  Forrest  (whom  I  learned  to  know 
in  later  years)  in  "  Metamora,"  and  Fanny  Kemble  in  "  Bea 
trice,"  and  so  on.  As  for  George  Boker,  he  went,  I  believe, 
to  every  place  of  amusement  whenever  he  pleased,  and  talked 
familiarly  of  actors,  some  of  whom  he  actually  knew,  and 
their  lives,  in  a  manner  which  awoke  in  me  awe  and  a  feel 
ing  as  being  humble  and  ignorant  indeed.  As  we  grew  older, 
Boker  and  I,  from  reading  "  Don  Quixote  "  and  Scott,  used 
to  sit  together  for  hours  improvising  legends  of  chivalry  and 
marvellous  romances.  It  was  in  the  year  when  it  first  ap 
peared  that  I  read  (in  the  New  Monthly}  and  got  quite  by 
heart  the  rhyming  tale  of  "  Sir  Rupert  the  Fearless,"  a  tale 
of  the  Rhine,  one  of  the  Ingoldsby  legends,  by  Barham.  I 


40  MEMOIRS. 

can  still  repeat  a  great  part  of  it.  I  bore  it  in  mind  till  in 
after  years  it  inspired  (allied  to  Goethe's  Wassermddcheri)  my 
ballad  of  De  Maiden  mil  Nodings  on,  which  has,  as  I  now 
write,  been  very  recently  parodied  and  pictured  by  Punch, 
March  18,  1893.  My  mother  had  taught  me  to  get  poetry 
by  heart,  and  by  the  time  I  was  ten  years  of  age,  I  had 
imbibed,  so  to  speak,  an  immense  quantity;  for,  as  in 
opium-eating,  those  who  begin  by  effort  end  by  taking  in 
with  ease. 

There  was  something  else  so  very  characteristic  of  old 
Philadelphia  that  I  will  not  pass  it  by.  In  the  fall  of  the 
year  the  reed-bird,  which  is  quite  as  good  as  the  ortolan  of 
Italy,  and  very  much  like  it  (I  prefer  the  reed-bird),  came  in 
large  flocks  to  the  marshes  and  shores  of  the  Delaware  and 
Schuylkill.  Then  might  be  seen  a  quaint  and  marvellous 
sight  of  men  and  boys  of  all  ages  and  conditions,  with  fire 
arms  of  every  faculty  and  form,  followed  by  dogs  of  every 
degree  of  badness,  in  all  kinds  of  boats,  among  which  the 
bateau  of  boards  predominated,  intermingled  with  an  occa 
sional  Maryland  dug-out  or  poplar  canoe.  Many,  however, 
crept  on  foot  along  the  shore,  and  this  could  be  seen  below 
the  Navy  Yard  even  within  the  city  limits.  Then,  as  flock 
after  flock  of  once  bobolinks  and  now  reed-birds  rose  or  fell 
in  flurried  flight,  there  would  be  such  a  banging,  cracking, 
and  barking  as  to  suggest  a  South  American  revolution  aided 
by  blood-hounds.  That  somebody  in  the  melee  now  and  then 
got  a  charge  of  shot  in  his  face,  or  that  angry  parties  in  dis 
pute  over  a  bird  sometimes  blazed  away  at  one  another  and 
fought  a  routrance  in  every  way,  "  goes  without  saying." 
Truly  they  were  inspiriting  sights,  and  kept  up  the  martial 
valour,  aided  by  frequent  firemen's  fights,  which  made  Phila- 
delphians  so  indomitable  in  the  Rebellion,  when,  to  the 
amazement  of  everybody,  our  Quaker  city  manifested  a 
genius  or  love  for  hard  fighting  never  surpassed  by  mortals. 

There  were,  of  course,  some  odd  episodes  among  the  in 
fantry  or  gunners  on  foot,  and  one  of  these  was  so  well 


EARLY  LIFE.  41 

described  by  my  brother  Henry  in  a  poem,  that  I  venture  to 
give  it  place. 

REED-BIRDING. 

Two  men  and  a  bull-dog  ugly, 

Two  guns  and  a  terrier  lame  ; 
They'd  better  stick  out  in  the  marsh  there, 

And  set  themselves  up  for  game. 

Biit  no  ;  I  mark  by  the  cocking 

Of  that  red-haired  Paddy's  eye, 
He's  been  "  reeding  "  too  much  for  you,  sir, 

Any  such  game  to  try. 

"  Now,  Jamie,  ye  divil,  kape  dark  there, 

And  hould  the  big  bull-dog  in  ; 
There's  a  bloody  big  crowd  of  rade-birds, 

That  nade  a  pepperin' ! " 

Ker-rack  !  goes  the  single  barrel, 
Flip-boong  !  roars  the  old  Queen  Anne  ; 

There's  a  Paddy  stretched  out  in  the  mud-hole, 
A  kicked-over,  knocked-down  man. 

"  Och,  Jamie,  ye  shtupid  crature, 

Sure  ye're  the  divil's  son  ; 
How  many  fingers'  load,  thin, 

Did  ye  putt  in  this  d d  ould  gun  ?  " 

"  How  many  fingers,  be  jabers? 

I  nivir  putt  in  a  wan ; 
Did  ye  think  I'd  be  afther  jammin' 

Me  fingers  into  a  gun  ?  " 

"  "Well,  give  me  the  powder,  Jamie." 

"  The  powder !  as  sure  as  I'm  born, 
I  put  it  all  into  yer  musket, 

For  I'd  nivir  a  powder-horn  ! " 

Then  we  all  had  reed-bird  suppers  or  lunches,  eked  out 
perhaps  with  terrapins  and  soft-shell  crabs,  gumbo,  "  snap 
per,"  or  pepper-pot  soup,  peaches,  venison,  bear-meat,  selon 
la  saison — for  both  bear  and  deer  roamed  wild  within  fifty  or 
sixty  miles — so  that,  all  things  considered,  if  Philadelphians 


42  MEMOIRS. 

and  Baltimoreans  did  run  somewhat  over-much  to  eating  up 
their  intellects — as  Dr.  Holmes  declares  they  do — they  had 
at  least  the  excuse  of  terrible  temptation,  which  the  men  of 
my  "  grandfather-land  "  (New  England),  as  he  once  termed 
it  in  a  letter  to  me,  very  seldom  had  at  any  time. 

Once  it  befell,  though  a  few  years  later,  that  one  winter 
there  was  a  broad  fair  field  of  ice  just  above  Fairmount  dam, 
which  is  about  ten  feet  high,  that  about  a  hundred  and  fifty 
men  and  maidens  were  merrily  skating  by  moonlight.  I 
know  not  whether  Colonel  James  Page,  our  great  champion 
skater,  was  there  cutting  High  Dutch  ;  but  this  I  know,  that 
all  at  once,  by  some  strange  rising  of  the  stream,  the  whole 
flake  of  ice  and  its  occupants  went  over  the  dam.  Strangely 
enough,  no  one  was  killed,  but  very  few  escaped  without  in 
jury,  and  for  some  time  the  surgeons  were  busy.  It  would 
make  a  strange  wild  picture  that  of  the  people  struggling  in 
the  broken  floes  of  ice  among  the  roaring  waters. 

And  again,  during  a  week  on  the  same  spot,  some  practi 
cal  joker  amused  himself  with  a  magic-lantern  by  making  a 
spirit  form  flit  over  the  fall,  against  its  face,  or  in  the  misty 
air.  The  whole  city  turned  out  to  see  it,  and  great  was  their 
marvelling,  and  greater  the  fear  among  the  negroes  at  the 
apparition. 

Sears  C.  Walker,  who  was  an  intimate  friend,  kept  a 
school  in  Sansom  Street,  to  which  I  was  transferred.  I  was 
only  seven  years  old  at  the  time,  and  being  the  youngest,  he 
made,  when  I  was  introduced,  a  speech  of  apology  to  his 
pupils.  He  was  a  good  kind  man,  who  also,  like  Jacob,  gave 
us  lectures  on  natural  philosophy  and  chemistry.  There  I 
studied  French,  and  began  to  learn  to  draw,  but  made  little 
progress,  though  I  worked  hard.  I  have  literally  never  met 
in  all  my  life  any  person  with  so  little  natural  gift  or  aptitude 
for  learning  languages  or  drawing  as  I  have ;  and  if  I  have 
since  made  an  advance  in  both,  it  has  been  at  the  cost  of 
such  extreme  labour  as  would  seem  almost  incredible. 

I  was  greatly  interested  in  chemistry,  as  a  child  would  be, 


EARLY  LIFE.  43 

and,  having  heard  Mr.  Walker  say  something  about  the  colour 
ing  matter  in  quartz,  resolved  on  a  great  invention  which 
should  immortalise  my  name.  My  teacher  used  to  make  his 
own  ink  by  pounding  nut-galls  in  an  iron  mortar.  I  got  a 
piece  of  coarse  rock-crystal,  pounded  it  up  in  the  same  mor 
tar,  pouring  water  on  it.  Sure  enough  the  result  was  a  pale 
ink,  which  the  two  elder  pupils,  who  had  maliciously  aided 
and  encouraged  me,  declared  was  of  a  very  superior  quality. 
I  never  shall  forget  the  pride  I  felt.  I  had,  first  of  all  sci 
entists,  extracted  the  colouring  matter  from  quartz  !  The 
recipe  was  at  once  written  out,  with  a  certificate  at  the  end, 
signed  by  my  two  witnesses,  that  they  had  witnessed  the 
process,  and  that  this  was  written  with  the  ink  itself !  This 
I  gave  to  Mr.  Walker,  and  could  not  understand  why  he 
laughed  so  heartily  at  it.  It  was  not  till  several  days  after 
that  he  explained  to  me  that  the  ink  was  the  result  of  the 
dregs  of  the  nut-galls  which  remained  in  the  mortar. 

We  had  not  many  books,  but  what  we  had  I  read  and  re 
read  with  great  assiduity.  Among  them  were  Cooper's  nov 
els,  Campbell's  poems,  those  of  Byron,  and  above  all,  Wash 
ington  Irving's  "  Sketch  Book,"  which  had  great  influence 
on  me,  inspiring  that  intense  love  for  old  English  literature 
and  its  associations  which  has  ever  since  been  a  part  of  my 
very  soul.  Irving  was  indeed  a  wonderful,  though  not  a 
startling  genius ;  but  he  had  sympathised  himself  into  such 
appreciation  of  the  golden  memories  and  sweet  melodies  of 
the  olden  time,  be  it  American  or  English,  as  no  writer  now 
possesses.  In  my  eighth  year  I  loved  deeply  his  mottoes, 
such  as  that  from  Syr  Grey  Steel : — 

"  He  that  supper  for  is  dight, 
He  lies  full  cold  I  trow  this  night ; 
Yestreen  to  chamber  I  him  led, 
This  nighte  Grey  Steel  has  made  his  bed." 

Lang — not  Andrew — has  informed  us  that  no  copy  of 
the  first  black-letter  edition  of  Sir  Grey  Steel  is  known  to 
exist.  In  after  years  I  found  in  the  back  binding  of  an  old 


44  MEMOIRS. 

folio  two  pieces  of  it,  each  about  four  inches  square.  It  has 
been  an  odd  fatality  of  mine  that  whenever  a  poet  existed  in 
black-letter,  I  was  always  sure  to  peruse  him  first  in  that 
type,  which  I  always  from  childhood  preferred  to  any  other. 
To  this  day  I  often  dream  of  being  in  a  book-shop,  turning 
over  endless  piles  of  marvellously  quaint  parchment  bound 
books  in  Ictrcs  blake,  and  what  is  singular,  they  are  gener 
ally  works  quite  unknown  to  the  world — first  discoveries — 
unique  !  And  then — oh  !  then — how  bitter  is  the  waking ! 

There  was  in  Mr.  Walker's  school  library  a  book,  one  well 
known  as  Mrs.  Trimmer's  "  Natural  History."  This  I  read, 
as  usual,  thoroughly  and  often,  and  wrote  my  name  at  the 
end,  ending  with  a  long  snaky  flourish.  Years  passed  by, 
and  I  was  at  the  University,  when  one  evening,  dropping  in 
at  an  auction,  I  bought  for  six  cents,  or  threepence,  "  a  blind 
bundle  "  of  six  books  tied  up  with  a  cord.  It  was  a  bargain, 
for  I  found  in  it  in  good  condition  the  first  American  edi 
tions  of  De  Quincey's  "  Opium-Eater,"  "  The  Rejected  Ad 
dresses,"  and  the  Poems  of  Coleridge.  But  what  startled  me 
was  a  familiar-looking  copy  of  Mrs.  Trimmer's  "Natural  His 
tory,"  in  which  at  the  end  was  my  boyish  signature. 

"And  still  wider."  In  1887  I  passed  some  weeks  at  a 
hotel  in  Venice.  A  number  of  Italian  naval  officers  dined  at 
our  taUe-cTMte  every  evening.  One  of  them  showed  us  an 
intaglio  which  he  had  bought.  It  represented  a  hunter  on 
an  elephant  firing  at  a  tiger.  The  owner  wished  to  know 
something  about  it.  Baron  von  Rosenfeld,  a  chamberlain  of 
the  Emperor  of  Austria,  remarked  at  once  that  it  was  as  old 
as  the  days  of  flint-locks,  because  smoke  was  rising  from  the 
lock  of  the  gun.  I  felt  that  I  knew  more  about  it,  but  could 
not  at  once  recall  what  I  knew,  and  said  that  I  would  explain 
it  the  next  day.  And  going  into  the  past,  I  remembered 
that  this  very  scene  was  the  frontispiece  to  Mrs.  Trimmer's 
"  Natural  History."  I  think  that  some  gem  engraver,  pos 
sibly  in  India,  had  copied  it  to  order.  I  can  even  now  recall 
many  other  things  in  the  book,  but  attribute  my  retention  of 


EARLY  LIFE.  45 

so  much  which  I  have  read  not  to  a  good  memory,  such  as 
the  mathematician  has,  which  grasps  directly,  but  simply  to 
frequent  reading  and  mental  reviewing  or  revising.  Where 
there  has  been  none  of  this,  I  forgot  everything  in  a  short 
time. 

My  father  took  in  those  years  BlackivoocT s  and  the  New 
Monthly  Magazine,  and  as  I  read  every  line  of  them,  they 
were  to  me  a  vast  source  of  knowledge.  I  remember  an  epi 
gram  by  "  Martial  in  London  "  in  the  latter : — 

"  In  Craven  Street,  Strand,  four  attorneys  find  place, 
And  four  dark  coal-barges  are  moored  at  the  base ; 
Fly,  Honesty,  fly — seek  some  safer  retreat, 
For  there's  craft  on  the  river,  and  craft  in  the  street." 

I  never  pass  by  Craven  Street  without  recalling  this,  and 
so  it  has  come  to  pass  that  by  such  memories  and  associations 
London  in  a  thousand  ways  is  always  reviving  my  early  life 
in  America. 

The  Noctes  Ambrosiance  puzzled  me,  as  did  the  Bible,  but 
I  read,  read,  read,  toujours.  My  uncle  Amos  lent  me  the 
"Arabian  Nights,"  though  my  father  strictly  prohibited  it. 
But  the  zest  of  the  forbidden  made  me  study  it  with  won 
drous  love.  The  reader  may  laugh,  but  it  is  a  fact  that  hav 
ing  obtained  "  Mother  Goose's  Melodies,"  I  devoured  them 
with  a  strange  interest  reflected  from  Washington  Irving. 
The  truth  is,  that  my  taste  had  been  so  precociously  devel 
oped,  that  I  unconsciously  found  a  literary  merit  or  charm 
in  them  as  I  did  in  all  fairy-tales,  and  I  remember  being 
most  righteously  indignant  once  when  a  young  bookseller 
told  me  that  I  was  getting  to  be  too  old  to  read  such  stuff ! 
The  truth  was,  that  I  was  just  getting  to  be  old  enough  to 
appreciate  it  as  folk-lore  and  literature,  which  he  never 
did. 

The  great  intellectual  influence  which  acted  on  me  most 
powerfully  after  Irving  was  an  incomplete  volume  of  about 
1790,  called  "  The  Poetical  Epitome."  It  consisted  of  many 
of  Percy's  "  Relics  "  with  selections  of  ballads,  poems,  and 


46  MEMOIRS. 

epigrams  of  many  eminent  writers.  I  found  it  a  few  years 
after  at  a  boarding-school,  where  I  continually  read  it  as 
before. 

As  I  was  backward  in  my  studies,  my  parents,  very  inju 
diciously  so  far  as  learning  was  concerned,  removed  me  from 
Mr.  Walker's  school,  and  put  me  under  the  care  of  T.  Bron- 
son  Alcott,  who  had  just  come  to  Philadelphia.  This  was 
indeed  going  from  the  frying-pan  into  the  very  fire,  so  far  as 
curing  idleness  and  desultory  habits  and  a  tendency  to  ro 
mance  and  wild  speculation  was  concerned.  For  Mr.  Alcott 
was  the  most  eccentric  man  who  ever  took  it  on  himself  to 
train  and  form  the  youthful  mind.  He  did  not  really  teach 
any  practical  study ;  there  was  indeed  some  pretence  at  geog 
raphy  and  arithmetic,  but  these  we  were  allowed  to  neglect 
at  our  own  sweet  will.  His  forte  was  "  moral  influence  "  and 
"  sympathetic  intellectual  communion  "  by  talking ;  and  oh, 
heaven !  what  a  talker  he  was !  He  was  then  an  incipient 
Transcendentalist,  and  he  did  not  fail  to  discover  in  me  the 
seeds  of  the  same  plant.  He  declared  that  I  had  a  marvellous 
imagination,  and  encouraged  my  passion  for  reading  anything 
and  everything  to  the  very  utmost.  It  is  a  fact  that  at  nine 
years  of  age  his  disquisitions  on  and  readings  from  Spenser's 
"  Faerie  Queen  "  actually  induced  me  to  read  the  entire  work, 
of  which  he  was  very  proud,  reminding  me  of  it  in  1881, 
when  I  went  to  Harvard  to  deliver  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  poem. 
He  also  read  thoroughly  into  us  the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress," 
Quarles's  "  Emblems,"  Northcote's  "  Fables,"  much  Shake 
speare,  Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  and  Milton,  all  of  which  sunk 
into  my  very  soul,  educating  me  indeed  "  ideally"  as  no  boy 
perhaps  in  Philadelphia  had  ever  been  educated,  at  the  utter 
cost  of  all  real  "  education."  It  was  a  great  pity,  and  pity 
'tis  'tis  true.  The  word  ideal  was  ever  in  his  mouth.  All  of 
the  new  theories,  speculations,  or  fads  which  were  beginning 
to  be  ventilated  among  the  Unitarian  liberal  clergy  found 
ready  welcome  in  his  dreamy  brain,  and  he  retailed  them  all 
to  his  pupils,  among  whom  I  was  certainly  the  only  one  who 


EARLY  LIFE.  47 

took  them  in  and  seriously  thought  them  over.  Yet  I  cannot 
say  that  I  really  liked  the  man  himself.  He  was  not  to  me 
exactly  sympathetic-human.  Such  training  as  his  would  de 
velop  in  any  boy  certain  weaknesses — and  I  had  mine — which 
were  very  repulsive  to  my  father,  who  carried  plain  common- 
sense  to  extremes,  and  sometimes  into  its  opposite  of  uncon 
scious  eccentricity,  though  there  was  no  word  which  he  so 
much  hated. 

Bulwer's  "  Last  Days  of  Pompeii,"  "  The  Disowned,"  and 
"  Pilgrims  of  the  Khine  "  made  a  deep  and  lasting  impression 
on  me.  I  little  thought  then  that  I  should  in  after  years  be 
the  guest  of  the  author  in  his  home,  and  see  the  skull  of 
Arbaces.  Oh,  that  by  some  magic  power  every  author  could 
be  made  to  feel  all  the  influence,  all  the  charm,  which  his  art 
exerts  on  his  readers,  and  especially  the  young.  Sometimes, 
now  and  then,  by  golden  chance,  a  writer  of  books  does  realise 
this,  and  then  feels  that  he  has  lived  to  some  purpose.  Once 
it  happened  to  me  to  find  a  man,  an  owner  of  palaces  and 
millions,  who  had  every  facility  for  becoming  familiar  with 
far  greater  minds  and  books  than  mine,  who  had  for  years 
collected  with  care  and  read  everything  which  I  had  ever 
written.  He  actually  knew  more  about  my  books  than  I  did. 
I  was  startled  at  the  discovery  as  at  a  miracle.  And  if  the 
reader  knew  what  a  melange  I  have  written,  he  would  not 
wonder  at  it. 

It  is  very  probable  that  no  man  living  appreciates  the  vast 
degree  to  which  any  book  whatever  which  aims  at  a  little 
more  than  merely  entertaining,  and  appeals  at  all  to  thought, 
influences  the  world,  and  how  many  readers  it  gets.  There 
are  books,  of  which  a  thousand  copies  were  never  sold,  which 
have  permeated  society  and  been  the  argument  of  national 
revolutions.  Such  a  book  was  the  "  Political  Economy  "  of 
H.  C.  Carey,  of  which  I  possess  the  very  last  copy  of  the  first, 
and  I  believe  the  only,  edition.  And  there  are  novels  which 
have  gone  to  the  three  hundred  thousand,  of  whose  authors 
it  may  be  said  that 


48  MEMOIRS. 

"  Over  the  barren  desert  of  their  brains 
There  never  strayed  the  starved  camel  of  an  idea," 

and  whose  works  vanish  like  wind. 

What  is  very  remarkable  is  the  manner  in  which  even  the 
great  majority  of  readers  confuse  these  two  classes,  and  be 
lieve  that  mere  popular  success  is  correlative  with  genius  and 
desert.  A  great  cause  of  this  really  vulgar  error  is  the  grow 
ing  conviction  that  artistic  skill  alone  determines  merit  in  lit 
erature,  and  that  intellect,  as  the  French,  beginning  mildly 
with  Voltaire  and  ending  violently  with  Sainte-Beuve,  assert 
is  of  far  less  importance  than  style.  "Xe  style,  c'est  V esprit 
du  siecle"  Apropos  of  which  I  remarked  that  in  the  war 
like  Middle  Age  in  France  the  motto  might  have  been 
"Uhomtne  c'est  le  STEEL."  Then  came  the  age  of  wigs, 
when  the  cry  was,  "Uliomme  c'est  le  STYLE."  And  now  we 
are  in  the  swindling  and  bogus-company-promoting  age, 
when  it  might  be  proclaimed  that  "IShomme  c'est  le  STEAL." 

There  was  another  book  which  I  read  through  and 
through  in  early  childhood  to  great  profit.  This  was  Cottle's 
"Alfred,"  an  epic  of  some  merit,  but  chiefly  in  this,  that  it  sets 
forth  tolerably  clearly  the  old  Norse  life  and  religion.  George 
Boker  owned  and  gave  me  some  time  after  a  book  entitled 
"  Five  Norse  Poems,"  in  the  original,  and  translated.  This 
with  Grey's  poems,  which  latter  I  possessed,  laid  the  basis 
for  a  deep  interest  in  after  years  in  Northern  antiquities ; 
they  were  soon  followed  by  Mallett ;  and  if  I  have  since  read 
many  sagas  in  Icelandic  and  studied  with  keenest  interest  the 
museums  of  the  North,  the  first  incentive  thereto  came  from 
my  boyish  reading.  When  I  was  sixteen  I  executed  a  poetic 
version  of  the  "  Death  Song  of  Regner  Lodbrog,"  which, 
though  it  was  never  published,  I  think  was  at  least  as  good 
as  any  translation  which  I  have  since  executed,  "  however 
that  may  be."  I  very  seriously  connected  this  Norse  spirit 
with  my  grandfather  and  his  stern  uncles  and  progenitors, 
who  had  fought  in  Canada  and  in  the  icy  winters  of  New 
England  ;  grim  men  they  were  all ;  and  I  daresay  that  I  was 


EARLY  LIFE.  49 

quite  right.  It  always  seems  to  me  that  among  these  alter 
nately  fighting  and  farming  Icelanders  I  am  among  my  Le- 
land  relatives ;  and  I  even  once  found  Uncle  Seth  in  his  red 
waistcoat  in  the  Burnt  Njals  saga  to  the  life.  There  was  a 
paragraph,  as  I  write,  recently  circulating  in  the  newspapers, 
in  which  I  was  compared  in  appearance  to  an  old  grey  Vi 
king,  and  it  gave  me  a  strange  uncanny  thrill,  as  if  the  writer 
of  it  were  a  wizard  who  had  revealed  a  buried  secret. 

My  parents,  on  coming  to  Philadelphia,  had  at  first  at 
tended  the  Episcopal  church,  but  finding  that  most  of  their 
New  England  friends  held  to  the  l\ev.  W.  H.  (now  Dr.)  Fur- 
ness,  an  Unitarian,  they  took  a  pew  in  his  chapel.  After  fif 
teen  years  they  returned  to  the  Episcopal  faith,  but  allowed 
me  to  keep  the  pew  to  myself  for  one  or  two  years,  till  I  went 
to  college.  In  Dr.  Furness's  chapel  I  often  heard  Channing 
and  all  the  famous  Unitarian  divines  of  the  time  preach,  and 
very  often  saw  Miss  Harriet  Martineau,  Dr.  Combe,  the 
phrenologist,  and  many  other  distinguished  persons.  In 
other  places  at  different  times  I  met  Andrew  Jackson,  Henry 
Clay,  to  whom  I  was  introduced,  Daniel  Webster,  to  whom  I 
reverently  bowed,  receiving  in  return  a  gracious  acknowledg 
ment,  Peter  Duponceau,  Morton,  Stephen  Girard,  Joseph 
Buonaparte,  the  two  authors  of  the  "  Jack  Downing  Let 
ters  " ;  and  I  once  heard  David  Crockett  make  a  speech. 
Apropos  of  Joseph  Buonaparte,  I  can  remember  to  have 
heard  my  wife's  mother,  the  late  Mrs.  Eodney  Fisher,  tell 
how  when  a  little  girl,  and  while  at  his  residence  at  Borden- 
town,  she  had  run  a  race  with  the  old  ex-king  of  Spain.  A 
very  intimate  friend  in  our  family  was  Professor  John  Frost, 
the  manufacturer  of  literally  innumerable  works  of  every 
description.  He  had  many  thousands  of  woodcut  blocks,  and 
when  he  received  an  order — as,  for  example,  a  history  of  any 
country,  or  of  the  world,  or  of  a  religion,  or  a  school  geog 
raphy,  or  book  of  travel  or  adventure,  or  a  biography,  or 
anything  else  that  the  heart  of  man  could  conceive — he  set 
his  scribes  to  write,  scissors  and  paste,  and  lo !  the  book  was 


50  MEMOIRS. 

made  forthwith,  he  aiding  and  revising  it.  What  was  most 
remarkable  was  that  many  of  these  pieces  de  manufacture 
were  rather  clever,  and  very  well  answered  the  demand,  for 
their  sale  was  enormous.  He  had  \vhen  young  been  in  the 
West  Indies,  and  written  a  clever  novelette  entitled  "  Ramon, 
the  Eover  of  Cuba."  Personally  he  was  very  handsome,  re 
fined,  and  intelligent;  a  man  meant  by  Nature  for  higher 
literary  work  than  mere  book-making. 

Miss  Eliza  Leslie,  the  writer  of  the  best  series  of  sketches 
of  American  domestic  life  of  her  day,  was  a  very  intimate 
friend  of  my  mother,  and  a  constant  visitor  at  our  house. 
She  was  a  sister  of  Leslie,  the  great  artist,  and  had  been  in 
her  early  life  much  in  England.  I  was  a  great  favourite 
with  her,  and  owed  much  to  her  always  entertaining  and 
very  instructive  conversation,  which  was  full  of  reminiscences 
of  distinguished  people  and  remarkable  events.  I  may  say 
with  great  truth  that  I  really  profited  as  much  by  mere  hear 
ing  as  many  boys  would  have  done  by  knowing  the  originals, 
so  deep  was  the  interest  which  I  felt  in  all  that  I  heard,  and 
so  eager  my  desire  to  learn  to  know  the  world. 

Then  I  was  removed,  and  with  good  cause,  from  Mr.  Al- 
cott's  school,  for  he  had  become  so  very  "  ideal "  or  eccentric 
in  his  teaching  and  odd  methods  of  punishment  by  torment 
ing  without  ever  whipping,  that  people  could  not  endure  his 
purely  intellectual  system.  So  for  one  winter,  as  my  health 
was  bad  and  I  was  frequently  ill,  for  a  long  time  I  was 
allowed  to  do  nothing  but  attend  a  writing-school  kept  by  a 
Mr.  Eand.  At  the  end  of  the  season,  he  sadly  admitted  that 
I  still  wrote  badly ;  I  think  he  pronounced  me  the  worst  and 
most  incurable  case  of  bad  writing  which  he  had  ever  attend 
ed.  In  1849  Judge  (then  Mr.)  Cadwallader,  with  whom  I 
was  studying  law,  said  that  he  admired  my  engrossing  hand 
more  than  any  he  had  ever  seen  except  one.  As  hands  go 
round  the  clock,  our  hands  do  change. 

I  was  to  go  the  next  summer  to  New  England  with  my 
younger  brother,  Henry  Perry  Leland,  to  be  placed  in  the 


EARLY   LIFE.  51 

celebrated  boarding-school  of  Mr.  Charles  W.  Greene,  at 
Jamaica  Plains,  five  miles  from  Boston ;  which  was  done,  and 
with  this  I  enter  on  a  new  phase  of  life,  of  which  I  have  very 
vivid  reminiscences.  Let  me  state  that  we  first  went  to 
Dedham  and  stayed  some  weeks.  There  I  found  living  with 
his  father,  an  interesting  boy  of  my  own  age,  named  Wil 
liam  Joshua  Barney,  a  grandson  of  the  celebrated  Com 
modore  Barney,  aneut  whom  was  written  the  song,  "  Barney, 
leave  the  girls  alone,"  apropos  of  his  having  been  allowed  to 
kiss  Marie  Antoinette  and  all  her  maids  of  honour.  William 
had  already  been  at  Mr.  Greene's  school,  and  we  soon  became 
intimate. 

During  this  time  my  father  hired  a  chaise ;  I  borrowed 
William's  shot-gun,  and  we  went  together  on  a  delightful  tour 
to  visit  all  our  relations  in  Holliston,  Milford,  and  elsewhere. 
At  one  time  we  stopped  to  slay  an  immense  black  snake ;  at 
another  to  shoot  wild  pigeons,  and  "  so  on  about  "  to  Prov 
idence  and  many  places.  From  cousins  who  lived  in  old 
farmhouses  in  wild  and  remote  places  I  received  Indian  ar 
row-heads  and  a  stone  tomahawk,  and  other  rustic  curiosities 
dear  to  my  heart.  At  the  Fremont  House  in  Boston  my 
father  showed  me  one  day  at  dinner  several  foreign  gentle 
men  of  different  nations  belonging  to  different  Legations. 
In  Rhode  Island  I  found  by  a  stream  several  large  pot-holes  in 
rocks  of  which  I  had  read,  and  explained  to  my  father  (grave 
ly  as  usual)  how  they  were  made  by  eddies  of  water  and 
gravel-stones.  One  day  my  father  in  Boston  took  me  to  see 
a  marvellous  white  shell  from  China,  valued  at  one  hundred 
pounds.  What  was  the  amazement  of  all  present  to  hear  me 
give  its  correct  Latin  name,  and  relate  a  touching  tale  of  a 
sailor  who,  finding  such  a  shell  when  shipwrecked  on  a 
desert  island,  took  it  home  with  him, "  and  was  thereby  raised 
(as  I  told  them)  from  poverty  to  affluence."  Which  tale  I 
had  read  the  week  before  in  a  children's  magazine,  and,  as 
usual,  reflected  deeply  on  it,  resolving  to  keep  my  eye  on  all 
shells  in  future,  in  the  hope  of  something  turning  up. 


52  MEMOIRS. 

I  was  not,  however,  a  little  prig  who  bored  people  with 
my  reading,  for  I  have  heard  old  folk  say  that  there  was  a 
quaint  naivete  and  droll  seriousness,  and  total  unconscious 
ness  of  superior  information  in  my  manner,  which  made  these 
outpourings  of  mine  very  amusing.  I  think  I  was  a  kind  of 
little  Paul  Dombey,  unconsciously  odd,  and  perhaps  in 
nocently  Quaker-like.  I  could  never  understand  why  Aunt 
Nancy,  and  many  more,  seemed  to  be  so  much  amused  at 
serious  and  learned  examples  and  questions  which  I  laid  down 
to  them.  For  though  they  did  not  "  smile  outright,"  I  had 
learned  to  penetrate  the  New  England  ironical  glance  and 
satirical  intonation.  My  mother  said  that,  when  younger,  I, 
having  had  a  difficulty  of  some  kind  with  certain  street-boys, 
came  into  the  house  with  my  eyes  filled  with  tears,  and  said, 
"  I  told  them  that  they  were  evil-minded,  but  they  laughed 
me  to  scorn."  On  another  occasion,  when  some  vagabond 
street-boys  asked  me  to  play  with  them,  I  gravely  declined, 
on  the  ground  that  I  must  "  Shim  bad  company " — this 
phrase  being  the  title  of  a  tract  which  I  had  read,  and  the 
boys  corresponding  in  appearance  to  a  picture  of  sundry 
young  ragamuffins  on  its  title-page. 

My  portrait  had  been  admirably  painted  in  Philadelphia 
by  Mrs.  Barley,  the  daughter  of  Sully,  who,  I  believe,  put 
the  finishing  touches  to  it.  When  Mr.  Walker  saw  it,  he  re 
marked  that  it  looked  exactly  as  if  Charley  were  just  about 
to  tell  one  of  his  stories.  At  the  time  I  was  reading  for  the 
first  time  "  The  Child's  Own  Book,"  an  admirable  large  col 
lection  of  fairy-tales  and  strange  adventures,  which  kept  me 
in  fairy-land  many  a  time  while  I  lay  confined  to  bed  for 
weeks  with  pleurisies  and  a  great  variety  of  afflictions,  for  in 
this  respect  I  suffered  far  more  than  most  children. 


EARLY  LIFE.  53 


AT  SCHOOL  IN  NEW  ENGLAND. 

Mr.  Charles  W.  Greene  was  a  portly,  ruddy,  elderly 
Boston  gentleman  of  good  family,  who  had  been  in  early 
life  attached  in  some  diplomatic  capacity  to  a  Legation,  and 
had  visited  Constantinople.  I  think  that  he  had  met  with 
reverses,  but  having  some  capital,  had  been  established  by 
his  many  friends  as  a  schoolmaster.  He  was  really  a  fine  old 
gentleman,  with  a  library  full  of  old  books,  and  had  Madeira 
in  quaint  little  old  bottles,  on  which,  stamped  in  the  glass, 
one  could  read  GREENE  1735.  He  had  a  dear  little  wife, 
and  both  were  as  kind  to  the  boys  as  possible.  Once,  and 
once  only,  when  I  had  really  been  very  naughty,  did  he  pun 
ish  me.  He  took  me  solemnly  into  the  library  (oh,  what 
blessed  beautiful  reading  I  often  had  there !),  and,  after  a 
solemn  speech,  and  almost  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  gave  me 
three  blows  with  a  folded  newspaper !  That  was  enough. 
If  I  had  been  flayed  with  a  rope's  end,  it  would  not  have  had 
a  greater  moral  effect  than  it  did. 

Everything  was  very  English  and  old-fashioned  about  the 
place.  The  house  was  said  in  1835  to  be  a  hundred  and  fifty 
years  old,  having  been  one  of  the  aristocratic  Colonial 
manors.  One  building  after  another  had  been  added  to  it, 
and  the  immense  elms  which  grew  about  testified  to  its  age. 
The  discipline  or  training  was  eminently  adapted  to  make 
young  gentlemen  of  us  all.  There  was  almost  no  immorality 
among  the  boys,  and  no  fighting  whatever.  The  punish 
ments  were  bad  marks,  and  for  every  mark  a  boy  was  obliged 
to  go  to  bed  an  hour  earlier  than  the  others.  Extreme  cases 
of  wickedness  were  punished  by  sending  boys  to  bed  in  the 
daytime.  "When  two  were  in  a  room,  and  thus  confined,  they 
used  to  relieve  the  monotony  of  their  imprisonment  by  fight 
ing  with  pillows.  Those  who  had  bad  marks  were  also  con 
fined  within  certain  bounds.  Good  boys,  or  those  especially 
favoured,  were  allowed  to  chop  kindling  wood,  or  do  other 
light  work,  for  which  they  were  paid  three  cents  per  hour. 


54  MEMOIRS. 

The  boy  who  was  first  down  in  the  morning  had  an  apple 
given  to  him.  This  apple  was  greatly  despised  by  the  bolder 
spirits,  who  taunted  those  Avho  arose  promptly  with  a  desire 
to  obtain  it. 

Candour  compels  me  to  admit  that,  as  a  teacher  of  learn 
ing,  Mr.  Greene  was  not  pre-eminent.  lie  had  two  school 
rooms,  and  employed  for  each  as  good  a  teacher  as  he  could 
hire.  But  we  were  not  at  all  thoroughly  well  taught,  al 
though  we  were  kept  longer  in  the  schoolroom  than  was 
really  good  for  us ;  for  in  summer  we  had  an  hour's  study 
before  breakfast,  then  from  nine  till  twelve,  and  again  from 
two  to  five.  In  winter  we  had,  instead  of  the  early  lesson, 
an  hour  in  the  evening.  Something  was  wanting  in  the  sys 
tem,  and  I  believe  that  after  a  year  and  a  half  I  knew  no 
more,  as  regards  studies,  than  I  did  when  I  first  entered. 

When  a  boy's  birthday  came,  he  was  allowed  to  have 
some  special  dainty  for  us  all.  I  was  very  much  disgusted 
with  the  Boston  boys  when  they  selected  pork  and  beans, 
which  I  loathed.  Some  would  choose  plum-pudding,  others 
apple-pies.  There  were  always  two  or  three  dishes  for  break 
fast,  as,  for  instance,  fried  potatoes  and  butter,  or  cold  meat, 
or  pan-dowdy — a  kind  of  coarse  and  broken  up  apple-pie — 
with  the  tea  and  bread  and  coffee,  but  we  could  only  eat  of 
one.  There  was  rather  too  much  petty  infant-schoolery  in 
all  this,  but  we  got  on  very  well.  Pepper  and  mustard  were 
forbidden,  but  I  always  had  a  great  natural  craving  for  these, 
and  when  I  asked  for  them,  Mr.  Greene  would  shake  his 
head,  but  always  ended  by  handing  them  to  me.  He  was  a 
bon  vivant  himself,  and  sympathised  with  me.  There  were 
one  or  two  books  also  of  a  rather  peppery  or  spicy  nature  in 
his  library,  such  as  a  collection  of  rollicking  London  songs, 
at  which  he  likewise  shook  his  head  when  I  asked  for  them 
— but  I  got  them.  There  I  read  for  the  first  time  all  of 
Walter  Scott's  novels,  and  the  Percy  Ballads,  and  some  of 
Marryatt's  romances,  and  Hood's  Annual,  and  Dr.  Holmes's 
first  poems. 


EARLY  LIFE.  55 

There  was  in  Mr.  Greene's  library  a  very  curious  and  now 
rare  work  in  three  volumes,  published  in  Boston  at  some 
time  in  the  twenties,  called  "  The  Marvellous  Depository." 
It  consisted  of  old  legends  of  Boston,  such  as  the  story  of 
"  Peter  Rugs,""  Tom  Walker  and  the  Devil,"  "  The  Golden 
Tooth,"  "  Captain  Kidd,"  "  The  Witch  Flymaker,"  and  an  ad 
mirable  collection  of  unearthly  German  tales,  such  as  "  The 
Devil's  Elixir,"  by  Hoffmann  (abridged),  "  Jacob  the  Bowl," 
"  Rubezahl,"  "  Der  Freyschutz,"  and  many  more,  but  all  of 
the  unearthly  blood-curdling  kind.  Singly,  they  were  appall 
ing  enough  to  any  one  in  those  days  when  the  supernatural 
still  thrilled  the  strongest  minds,  but  taken  altogether  for 
steady  reading,  the  book  was  a  perfect  Sabbat  of  deviltry  and 
dramatic  horrors.  The  tales  were  well  told,  or  translated  in 
very  simple  but  vigorous  English,  and  I  pored  over  the  col 
lection  and  got  it  by  heart,  and  borrowed  it,  and  took  it  to 
Dedhani  in  the  holidays,  and  into  the  woods,  where  I  read  it 
in  sunshine  or  twilight  shade  by  the  rippling  river,  under 
wild  rocks,  and  so  steeped  my  soul  in  the  supernatural,  that 
I  seemed  to  live  a  double  life.  As  was  natural,  my  school 
mates  read  and  liked  such  tales,  but  they  sunk  into  my  very 
soul,  and  took  root,  and  grew  up  into  a  great  overshadowing 
forest,  while  with  others  they  were  only  as  dwarf  bushes,  if 
they  grew  at  all.  All  of  this — though  I  did  not  know  it — 
was  unconsciously  educating  my  bewitched  mind  to  a  deep 
and  very  precocious  passion  for  mediaeval  and  black-letter 
literature  and  occult  philosophy,  which  was  destined  to 
manifest  itself  within  a  few  years. 

There  was  another  book  which  greatly  influenced  my 
mind  and  life.  I  have  forgotten  the  title,  but  it  was  a  very 
remarkable  collection  of  curiosities,  such  as  accounts  of  a 
family  of  seven  children  who  had  every  one  some  strange 
peculiarity,  dwarfs  and  giants,  and  mysteriously-gifted  mor 
tals,  and  all  kinds  of  odd  beings  and  inventions.  I  obtained 
it  in  a  very  mysterious  way ;  for  one  day  I  found  it  in  my 
desk,  a  blessed  gift  indeed  from  some  unknown  friend  who 


56  MEMOIRS. 

had  rightly  judged  of  my  tastes.  This  work  I  literally  lived 
upon  for  a  long  time.  Once  a  lady  friend  of  my  mother's 
came  in  winter  and  took  me  a-sleighing,  but  I  had  my  dear 
book  under  my  jacket,  and  contrived  now  and  then  to  re-read 
some  anecdote  in  it.  In  after  years  I  found  a  copy  of  it  in 
the  Mercantile  Library,  Philadelphia,  but  I  have  never  seen 
it  elsewhere.*  I  had  at  Mr.  Alcott's  carefully  studied  all  the 
Percy  Anecdotes,  and  could  repeat  most  of  them  when  re 
called  by  some  association;  also  Goldsmith's  "Animated 
Nature,"  the  perusal  of  which  latter  work  was  to  me  as  the 
waving  of  a  forest  and  the  sighing  of  deep  waters.  Then, 
too,  I  had  read — in  fact  I  owned — the  famous  Peter  Parley 
books,  which  gave  me,  as  they  have  to  thousands  of  boys,  a 
desire  to  travel  and  see  the  world.  I  marvelled  greatly  at 
finding  that  Peter  Parley  himself,  or  Mr.  S.  G.  Goodrich,  had 
a  beautiful  country-house  very  near  our  school,  and  his  son 
Frank,  who  was  a  very  pleasant  and  wonderfully  polite  and 
sunshiny  boy,  sat  by  me  in  school.  Frank  Goodrich  in  after 
life  wrote  a  novel  entitled  "  Flirtation  and  its  Consequences," 
of  which  my  brother  said,  "  What  are  its  consequences, 
Frank;  good  rich  husbands?  By  no  means."  I  can  re 
member  being  invited  to  a  perfectly  heavenly  garden-party 
at  the  Goodrichs',  and  evening  visits  there  with  my  mother. 
And  I  may  note  by  the  way,  that  Frank  himself  lived  abroad 
in  after  years ;  that  his  father  became  the  American  Consul 

*  Since  writing  the  foregoing,  and  by  a  most  appropriately  odd  co 
incidence  or  mere  chance,  I  have  received  with  delight  a  copy  of  this 
work  from  Jesse  Jaggard,  a  well-known  dealer  in  literary  curiosities  in 
Liverpool,  who  makes  a  specialty  of  hunting  up  rarities  to  order,  which 
is  of  itself  a  quaint  business.  The  book  is  entitled  "  Curiosities  for  the 
Ingenious.  Selected  from  the  Most  Authentic  Treasures  of  Xature, 
Science  and  Art,  Biography,  History,  and  General  Literature.  London : 
Thomas  Boys,  Ludgate  Hill,  1821."  Boys  was  the  publisher  of  the  cele 
brated  series  of  "The  Percy  Anecdotes."  I  should  here,  in  justice  to 
Mr.  Jaggard,  mention  that  I  am  indebted  to  him  for  obtaining  for  me 
several  rare  and  singular  works,  and  that  his  catalogues  are  remarkably 
well  edited. 


EARLY  LIFE.  57 

in  Paris,  and  that  in  1848  he  introduced  to  the  Gouverne- 
ment  Provisoire  the  American  delegation,  of  which  I  was 
one,  and  how  we  were  caricatured  in  the  Charivari,  in  which 
caricature  I  was  specially  depicted,  the  likeness  being  at  once 
recognised  by  everybody,  and  how  I  knew  nothing  of  it  all 
till  I  was  told  about  it  by  the  beautiful  Miss  Goodrich, 
Frank's  younger  sister,  on  a  Staten  Island  steamboat,  many, 
many  years  after.  And  as  a  postscript  I  may  add,  that  it  is 
literally  true  that  before  I  was  quite  twenty- three  years  of  age  I 
had  been  twice  caricatured  or  pictorially  jested  on  in  the 
Munich  Fliegende  Blatter  and  twice  in  the  Paris  Charivari, 
which  may  show  that  I  was  to  a  certain  degree  about  town  in 
those  days,  as  I  indeed  was.  While  I  am  about  it,  I  may  as 
well  tell  the  Munich  tale.  There  was  a  pretty  governess,  a 
great  friend  of  mine,  who  had  charge  of  two  children.  Meet 
ing  her  one  day  in  the  park,  at  a  sign  from  me  she  pressed 
the  children's  hats  down  over  their  eyes  with  "  Kinder,  setzt 
euro  Hiite  fester  auf  !  "  and  in  that  blessed  instant  cast  up 
her  beautiful  lips  and  was  kissed.  I  don't  know  whether 
we  were  overseen ;  certain  it  is  that  in  the  next  number  of 
the  Fliegende  Blatter  the  scene  was  well  depicted,  with  the 
words.  The  other  instance  was  this.  One  evening  I  met  in 
a  Bierhalle  a  sergeant  of  police  with  whom  I  fraternised.  I 
remember  that  he  could  talk  modern  Greek,  having  learned 
it  in  Greece.  This  was  very  infra  dig.  indeed  for  a  student, 
and  one  of  my  comrades  said  to  me  that,  as  I  was  a  foreigner, 
I  was  probably  not  aware  of  what  a  fault  I  had  committed, 
but  that  in  future  I  must  not  be  seen  talking  to  a  soldier. 
To  which  I,  with  a  terrible  wink,  replied,  "Mum's  the 
word  ;  that  soldier  is  lieutenant  of  police  in  my  ward,  and  I 
have  squared  it  with  him  all  right,  so  that  if  there  should  be 
a  Bierkrawall  (a  drunken  row)  in  our  quarter  he  will  let  me 
go."  This,  which  appeared  as  a  grand  flight  of  genial  genius 
to  a  German,  speedily  went  through  all  the  students'  kneipe, 
and  soon  appeared,  very  well  illustrated,  in  the  "  F.  B." 
We  were  allowed  sixpence  a  week  spending-money  at  Mr. 


58  MEMOIRS. 

Greene's,  two  cents,  or  a  penny,  being  deducted  for  a  bad 
mark.  Sometimes  I  actually  got  a  full  week's  income ;  once 
I  let  it  run  on  up  to  25  cents,  but  this  was  forbidden,  it  not 
being  considered  advisable  that  the  boys  should  accumulate 
fortunes.  A  great  deal  of  my  money  went  for  cheap  comic 
literature,  which  I  carefully  preserved.  In  those  days  there 
were  Crockett's  almanacs  (now  a  great  fund  of  folk-lore), 
and  negro  songs  and  stories  were  beginning  to  be  popular. 
It  is  very  commonly  asserted  that  the  first  regular  negro 
minstrel  troupe  appeared  in  1842.  This  is  quite  an  error. 
While  I  was  at  Mr.  Greene's,  in  1835,  there  came  to  Dedham 
a  circus  with  as  regularly-appointed  a  negro  minstrel  troupe 
of  a  dozen  as  I  ever  saw.  I  often  beheld  the  pictures  of  them 
on  the  bill.  Nor  do  I  think  that  this  was  any  novelty  even 
then.  The  Crockett  almanacs  greatly  stimulated  my  sense 
of  American  humour  (they  do  indeed  form  collectively  a 
very  characteristic  work),  and  this,  with  some  similar  read 
ing,  awoke  in  me  a  passion  for  wild  Western  life  and  frontier 
experiences,  which  was  fully  and  strangely  gratified  in  after 
years,  but  which  would  certainly  have  never  happened  had  it 
not  been  for  this  boyish  reading. 

For  I  beg  the  reader  to  observe  that  it  is  a  very  deeply- 
seated  characteristic  that  whatever  once  takes  root  in  my 
mind  invariably  grows.  This  comes  from  the  great  degree  to 
which  I  have  always  gone  over,  reviewed,  and  reflected  on,  or 
nursed  everything  which  ever  once  really  interested  me.  And 
as  I  have  thus  far  written,  and  shall  probably  conclude  this 
work  without  referring  to  a  note,  the  reader  will  have  ample 
opportunity  of  observing  how  very  strangely  in  all  cases  the 
phases  of  my  life  were  predetermined  long  before  by  the 
literary  education  which  I  gave  myself,  aided  very  much  by 
hereditary  or  other  causes  quite  beyond  my  control.  Now,  as 
the  object  of  a  Life  is  to  understand  every  cause  which  cre 
ated  it,  and  as  mine  was  to  a  very  unusual  degree  created  by 
reading  and  reflecting,  even  in  infancy,  I  beg  the  reader  not 
to  be  impatient  with  me  for  describing  so  much  in  detail  the 


EARLY  LIFE.  59 

books  which  made  my  mind  at  different  times.  That  is,  I 
pray  this  much  allowance  and  sympathy  from  possible  read 
ers  and  critics,  that  they  will  kindly  not  regard  me  as  vain  or 
thinking  over-much  of,  or  too  much  over,  myself.  For  to 
set  oneself  forth  as  one  really  is  requires  deep  investigation 
into  every  cause,  and  the  depicting  all  early  characteristics, 
and  the  man  never  lived  who  ever  did  this  truly  and  accu 
rately  without  much  egoism,  or  what  the  ill-disposed  may 
treat  as  such.  And  I  promise  the  possible  reader  that  when 
this  subjective  analysis  shall  be  fairly  disposed  of,  there  will 
be  no  lack  of  mere  incident  or  event  of  objective  nature  and 
more  general  interest. 

My  first  winter  at  Jamaica  Plains  was  the  terrible  one  of 
1835,  during  which  I  myself  saw  the  thermometer  at  50  de 
grees  Fahrenheit  below  zero,  and  there  was  a  snow-bank  in 
the  play-ground  from  October  till  May.  The  greatest  care 
possible  was  taken  of  us  boys  to  keep  us  warm  and  well,  but 
we  still  suffered  very  much  from  chilblains.  Water  thrown 
into  the  air  froze  while  falling.  Still  there  were  some  happy 
lights  and  few  shadows  in  it  all.  The  boys  skated  or  slid  on 
beautiful  Jamaica  Pond,  which  was  near  the  school.  There 
was  a  general  giving  of  sleds  to  us  all ;  mine  broke  to  pieces 
at  once.  I  never  had  luck  with  any  plaything,  never  played 
ball  or  marbles,  and  hardly  ever  had  even  a  top.  Nor  did  I 
ever  have  much  to  do  with  any  games,  or  even  learn  in  later 
years  to  play  cards,  which  was  all  a  great  pity.  Sports  should 
be  as  carefully  looked  to  in  early  education  as  book-learning. 
I  had  also  a  pair  of  dear  gazelle-skates  given  to  me  with  the 
rest,  but  they  also  broke  up  on  first  trial,  and  I  have  never 
owned  any  since.  Destiny  was  always  against  me  in  such 
matters. 

The  boys  built  two  large  snow-houses,  roofed  in  or  arched 
over  with  hard  snow.  One  was  ingeniously  and  appropri 
ately  like  an  Eskimo  hut,  with  a  rather  long  winding  passage 
leading  into  it.  Of  these  I  wrote  in  the  spring,  when  the 
sun  had  begun  to  act,  "  one  is  almost  annihilated,  and  of  the 


60  MEMOIRS. 

other  not  a  vestaye  remains."  I  found  the  letter  by  chance 
many  years  later. 

There  lived  in  Boston  some  friends  of  my  mother's  named 
Gay.  In  the  family  was  an  old  lady  over  eighty,  who  was 
a  wonderfully  lively  spirited  person.  She  still  sang,  as  I 
thought,  very  beautifully,  to  the  lute,  old  songs  such  as 
"  The  merry  days  of  good  Queen  Bess,"  and  remembered 
the  old  Colonial  time  as  if  it  were  of  yesterday.  One  day 
Mr.  Gay  came  out  and  took  me  to  his  house,  where  I  re 
mained  from  Saturday  until  Monday ;  during  which  time  I 
found  among  the  books,  and  very  nearly  read  through,  all 
the  poems  of  Peter  Pindar  or  Doctor  Wolcott.  Precious 
reading  it  was  for  a  boy  of  eleven,  yet  I  enjoyed  it  im 
mensely.  While  there,  I  found  in  the  earth  in  the  garden 
an  oval,  dark-green  porphyry  pebble,  which  I,  moved  by  a 
strange  feeling,  preserved  for  many  years  as  an  amulet.  It 
is  ver}7  curious  that  exactly  such  pebbles  are  found  as  fetishes 
all  over  the  world,  and  the  famous  conjuring  stone  of  the 
Voodoos,  which  I  possess,  is  only  an  ordinary  black  flint 
pebble  of  the  same  shape.  Negroes  have  travelled  a  thou 
sand  miles  to  hold  it  in  their  hands  and  make  a  wish,  which, 
if  uttered  with  faith,  is  always  granted.  Its  possession  alone 
entitles  any  one  to  the  first  rank  as  master  in  the  mysteries 
of  Voodoo  sorcery.  Truly  I  began  early  in  the  business  !  I 
may  here  say  that  since  I  owned  the  Voodoo  stone  it  has 
been  held  in  several  very  famous  and  a  few  very  beautiful 
hands. 

While  I  was  at  Mr.  Greene's  I  wrote  my  first  poem.  I 
certainly  exhibited  no  great  precocity  of  lyrical  genius  in  it, 
but  the  reader  must  remember  that  I  was  only  a  foolish  little 
boy  of  ten  or  eleven  at  the  time,  and  that  I  showed  it  to  no 
one.  It  was  as  follows : 

"  As  a  long-bearded  Sultan,  an  infidel  Turk, 
Who  ne'er  in  his  life  had  done  any  work, 
Rode  along  to  the  bath,  he  saw  Hassan  the  black, 
With  two  monstrous  water-skins  high  on  his  back. 


EARLY  LIFE.  (Jl 

* 

" '  Ho,  Hassan,  thou  afreet !  thou  infidel  dog ! 
Thou  son  of  a  Jewess  and  eater  of  hog ! 
This  instant,  this  second,  put  down  thy  skin  jugs, 
And  for  my  sovereign  pleasure  remove  both  the  plugs ! ' 

"  The  negro  obeyed  him,  put  both  on  the  ground. 
And  opened  the  skins  and  the  water  flew  round ; 
The  Sultan  looked  on  till  he  laughed  his  fill ; 
Then  went  on  to  the  bath,  feeling  heated  and  ill. 

"  When  arrived  at  the  bath,  '  Is  all  ready  f '  he  cries. 
'  Indeed  it  is  not,  sire,'  the  bath-man  replies ; 
'  For  to  fetch  the  bath-water  black  Hassan  has  gone, 
And  your  highness  can't  have  it  till  he  shall  return.'  " 

In  after  years  my  friend,  Professor  E.  H.  Palmer,  trans 
lated  this  into  Arabic,  and  promised  me  that  it  should  be 
sung  in  the  East.  It  is  not  much  of  a  poem,  even  for  a  boy, 
but  there  is  one  touch  true  to  life  in  it — which  is  the  cursing. 
This  must  have  come  to  me  by  revelation  ;  and  in  after  years 
in  Cairo  I  never  heard  a  native  address  another  as  "Afrit ! 
Ya-hinzeer — wa  Yaliud — yin  uldeen  ok  f  " — "  curse  your  re 
ligion  !  " — but  I  thought  how  marvellous  it  was  that  I,  even 
in  my  infancy,  had  divined  so  well  how  they  did  it !  How 
ever,  now  I  come  to  think  of  it,  I  had  the  year  before  read 
Morier's  "  Haji-Baba "  with  great  admiration,  and  I  doubt 
not  that  it  was  the  influence  of  that  remarkable  book  which 
produced  this  beautiful  result.  In  after  years  I  met  with  a 
lady  who  was  a  daughter  of  Morier.  Apropos  of  the  book,  it 
reminds  me  that  I  specially  recall  my  reviewing  it  mentally 
many  times. 

I  have  reviewed  my  early  life  in  quiet,  old-fashioned, 
shaded  Philadelphia  and  in  rural  New  England  so  continu^ 
ally  and  carefully  all  the  time  ever  since  it  passed  that  I  am 
sure  its  minutest  detail  on  any  day  would  now  be  accurately 
recalled  at  the  least  suggestion.  As  I  shall  almost  certainly 
write  this  whole  work  without  referring  to  a  note  or  journal 
or  other  document,  it  will  be  seen  that  I  remember  the  past 
pretty  well.  What  is  most  remarkable  in  it  all,  if  I  can  make 
myself  intelligible,  is  that  what  between  the  deep  and  indeli- 


62  MEMOIRS. 

ble  impression  made  on  my  mind  by  books,  and  that  of 
scenery  and  characters  now  passed  away — the  two  being  con 
nected — it  all  seems  to  me  now  to  be  as  it  were  vividly  de 
picted,  coloured,  or  written  in  my  mind,  like  pages  in  an 
illuminated  or  illustrated  romance.  As  some  one  has  said 
that  dreams  are  novels  which  we  read  when  asleep,  so  by 
gone  memories,  when  continually  revived  and  associated  with 
the  subtle  and  delicate  influences  of  reading,  really  become 
fixed  literature  to  us,  glide  into  it,  and  are  virtually  turned 
to  copy,  which  only  awaits  type.  Thus  a  scene  to  one  highly 
cultivated  in  art  is  really  a  picture,  to  a  degree  which  few 
actually  realise,  though  they  may  fancy  they  do,  because  to 
actually  master  this  harmony  requires  so  many  years  of  study 
and  thought  that  I  very  rarely  meet  with  perfect  instances  of 
it.  De  Quincey  and  Coleridge  are  two  of  the  best  illustra 
tions  whom  I  can  recall,  while  certain  analytical  character- 
sifters  in  modern  novels  -seem  the  farthest  remote  from  such 
genial  naturalness. 

At  the  end  of  the  first  year  my  brother  returned  to  Phila 
delphia.  I  passed  the  summer  at  Dr.  Stimson's,  in  Dedham, 
wandering  about  in  the  woods  with  my  bow,  fishing  in  the 
river,  reading  always  whatever  fate  or  a  small  circulating 
library  provided — I  remember  that  "The  Devil  on  Two 
Sticks  "  and  the  "  Narrative  of  Captain  Boyle  "  were  in  it — 
and  carving  spoons  and  serpents  from  wood,  which  was  a 
premonition  of  my  later  work  in  this  line,  and  of  my 
"  Manual  of  "Wood-Carving." 

At  this  time  something  took  place  which  deeply  impressed 
me.  This  was  the  two  hundredth  anniversary  of  the  build 
ing  of  the  town  of  Dedham,  which  was  celebrated  with  very 
great  splendour  :  speeches,  tents  with  pine-boughs,  music- 
booths,  ginger-beer,  side-shows — in  short,  all  the  pomp  and 
circumstance  of  a  country  fair  allied  to  historic  glory.  I  had 
made  one  or  two  rather  fast  and,  I  fear  me,  not  over-reputa 
ble  acquaintances  of  my-  own  age,  with  whom  I  enjoyed  the 
festival  to  the  utmost.  Then  I  returned  to  school,  and  au- 


EARLY  LIFE.  63 

tumn  came,  and  then  winter.  At  this  time  I  felt  fearfully 
lonely.  I  yearned  for  my  mother  with  a  longing  beyond 
words,  and  was  altogether  home-sick. 

I  was  seated  one  Saturday  afternoon,  busily  working  in 
the  drawing-class  under  a  little  old  Englishman  named  Dr. 
Hunt,  when  there  came  the  startling  news  that  a  gentleman 
had  come  to  take  me  home  !  I  could  hardly  believe  my 
senses.  I  went  down,  and  was  presented  to  a  man  of  about 
thirty,  of  extremely  pleasant  and  attractive  appearance,  who 
told  me  that  his  name  was  Carlisle,  that  he  was  a  friend 
of  my  father's,  and  that  I  was  at  once  to  return  with 
him  to  Philadelphia.  I  wonder  that  I  did  not  faint  with 

joy- 
Mr.  Carlisle  was  a  man  of  very  remarkable  intelligence, 
kindness,  and  refinement.  Nearly  sixty  years  have  passed 
since  then,  and  yet  the  memory  of  the  delightful  impression 
which  he  made  on  me  is  as  fresh  as  ever.  My  trunk  was  soon 
packed  ;  we  were  whirled  away  to  Boston,  and  went  to  a  ho 
tel,  he  treating  me  altogether  like  a  young  gentleman  and  an 
equal. 

It  had  been  the  dream  and  hope  and  wild  desire  of  my 
life  to  go  to  the  Lion  Theatre  in  Boston,  where  circus  was 
combined  with  roaring  maritime  melodramas,  of  which  I  had 
heard  heavenly  accounts  from  a  few  of  my  schoolmates.  And 
Mr.  Carlisle  took  me  there  that  evening,  and  I  saw  "  Ilyder 
AH."  Never,  never  in  my  life  before  did  I  dream  that  dra 
matic  art,  poetry,  and  mimesis  could  attain  to  such  ideal 
splendour.  And  then  a  sailor  came  on  the  stage  and  sang 
"  Harry  Bluff,"  and  when  he  came  to  the  last  line— 

"  And  he  died  like  a  true  Yankee  sailor  at  last," 

amid  thundering  hurrahs,  it  seemed  to  me  that  romance  could 
go  no  farther.  I  do  not  think  that  Mr.  Carlisle  had  any  knowl 
edge  of  boys,  certainly  not  of  such  a  boy  as  I  was,  but  I  am 
sure  that  he  must  have  been  amply  repaid  for  his  kindness  to 
me  in  my  delight.  And  there  were  acrobatic  performances, 


d4  MEMOIRS. 

such  as  I  had  never  seen  in  my  life,  and  we  returned  to  the 
hotel  and  a  grand  supper,  and  I  was  in  heaven. 

The  next  morning  Mr.  Carlisle  put  into  my  hand,  with 
great  delicacy,  such  a  sum  as  I  had  never  before  possessed, 
telling  me  that  I  "  would  need  it  for  travelling  expenses." 
All  the  while  he  drew  me  out  on  literature.  On  the  Long 
Island  Sound  steamer  he  bade  me  notice  a  young  gentleman 
(whom  I  was  destined  to  know  in  after  years),  a  man  with 
curly  hair  and  very  foppish  air,  accompanied  by  a  page  "  in 
an  eruption  of  buttons,"  and  told  me  that  it  was  N".  P.  Willis. 
And  so  revelling  in  romance  and  travel,  with  mince-pie  and 
turkey  for  my  daily  food,  my  pocket  stuffed  with  money,  iu 
the  most  refined  and  elegant  literary  society  (at  least  it  was 
there  on  deck),  I  came  to  Philadelphia.  I  may  here  say  that 
the  memory  of  Mr.  Carlisle  has  made  me  through  all  my  life 
kinder  to  boys  than  I  might  otherwise  have  been ;  and  if,  as  a 
teacher,  I  have  been  popular  among  them,  it  was  to  a  great 
degree  due  to  his  influence.  For,  as  will  appear  in  many  pas 
sages  in  this  book,  I  have  to  a  strange  degree  the  habit  of 
thinking  over  marked  past  experiences,  and  drawing  from 
them  precedents  by  which  to  guide  my  conduct ;  hence  it  has 
often  happened  that  a  single  incident  has  shown  itself  in  hun 
dreds  of  others,  as  a  star  is  reflected  in  countless  pools. 


II. 

BOYHOOD    AND    YOUTH. 
1837-1845. 

Return  to  Philadelphia  at  twelve  years  of  age — Early  discipline — School 
at  Mr.  C.  Walker's— B.  P.  Hunt— My  first  reading  of  Rabelais- 
Mr.  Robert  Stewart — Hurlbut's  school — Boyish  persecution — Much 
strange  reading — Frangois  Villon — Early  studies  in  philosophy — 
Transcendentalism  and  its  influence — Spanish — School  of  E.  C. 
Wines — The  French  teacher — Long  illness — The  intelligent  horse — 
Princeton  University  professors — Albert  Dodd  and  James  Alexander 
— College  life — Theology — Rural  scenes — Reading — My  first  essays 
— The  Freshman  rebellion — Smoking — George  H.  Boker — Jacob 
Behraen  or  Bohme — Stonington — Captain  Nat  Palmer  and  Commo 
dore  Vanderbilt — My  graduation. 

How  happy 1  was  again  to  see  my  mother  and  father  and 
Henry !  And  then  came  other  joys.  My  father  had  taken  a 
very  nice  house  in  Walnut  Street,  in  the  best  quarter  of  the 
city,  below  Thirteenth  Street,  and  this  was  a  source  of  pleas 
ure,  as  was  also  a  barrel  of  apples  in  the  cellar,  to  which  I 
had  free  access.  They  had  been  doled  out  to  us  very  spar 
ingly  at  school,  and  I  never  shall  forget  the  delight  with 
which  I  one  day  in  December  at  Jamaica  Plain  discovered  a 
frozen  apple  on  a  tree  !  Then  there  was  the  charm  of  being 
in  a  great  city,  and  familiar  old  scenes,  and  the  freedom  from 
bad  marks,  and  being  ruled  into  bounds,  and  sent  to  bed  at 
early  hours.  There  is,  in  certain  cases,  a  degree  of  moral 
restraint  and  discipline  which  is  often  carried  much  too  far, 
especially  where  boys  are  brought  up  with  a  view  to  pushing 
themselves  in  the  world.  I  was  sixteen  years  of  age  and  six 
feet  high  before  I  was  allowed  to  leave  off  short  jackets,  go  to 
a  theatre,  or  travel  alone,  all  of  which  was  more  injurious  to 


QQ  MEMOIRS. 

me,  I  believe,  than  ordinary  youthful  dissipation  would  have 
been,  especially  in  America.  Yet,  while  thus  repressed,  I 
was  being  continually  referred  by  all  grown-up  friends  to  en 
terprising  youth  of  my  own  age,  who  were  making  a  living  in 
bankers'  or  conveyancers'  offices,  &c.,  and  acting  "  like  men." 
The  result  really  being  that  I  was  completely  convinced  that 
I  was  a  person  of  feeble  and  inferior  capacity  as  regarded  all 
that  was  worth  doing  or  knowing  in  life,  though  Heaven 
knows  my  very  delicate  health  and  long  illnesses  might  of 
themselves  have  excused  all  my  failings.  The  vast  majority 
of  Americans,  however  kind  and  generous  they  may  be  in 
other  respects,  are  absolutely  without  mercy  or  common-sense 
as  regards  the  not  succeeding  in  life  or  making  money.  Such, 
at  least,  was  my  experience,  and  bitter  it  was.  Elders  often 
forget  that  even  obedience,  civility,  and  morality  in  youth  are 
luxuries  which  must  be  paid  for  like  all  other  extravagances 
at  a  high  price,  especially  in  children  of  feeble  constitution. 
The  dear  boy  grows  up  "  as  good  as  pie,"  and,  being  pious, 
"  does  not  know  one  card  from  another,"  nor  one  human  be 
ing  from  another.  You  make  of  him  a  fool,  and  then  call 
him  one — I  mean,  what  you  regard  as  a  fool.  I  am  not  at 
all  sure  that  one  or  two  cruises  in  a  slaver  (there  were  plenty 
of  them  sailing  out  of  New  York  in  those  clays)  would  not 
have  done  me  far  more  good  of  a  certain  kind  than  all  the 
education  I  had  till  I  left  college  in  America.  I  am  not  here 
complaining,  as  most  weak  men  do,  as  if  they  were  specially 
victims  to  a  wretched  fate  and  a  might-have-been-better. 
The  vast  majority  of  boys  have  not  better  homes  or  educa 
tion,  kinder  parents,  or  advantages  greater  than  mine  were. 
But  as  I  do  not  recall  my  boyhood's  days  or  my  youth  till  I 
left  college  with  that  joyousness  which  I  find  in  other  men 
without  exception,  and  as,  in  fact,  there  always  seems  as  if  a 
cloud  were  over  it  all,  while  from  below  there  was  a  low  con 
tinual  murmur  as  of  a  patient  soul  in  pain,  I  feel  that  there 
was  something  wrong  in  it  all,  as  there  indeed  was — the 
wrong  of  taking  all  the  starch  out  of  a  shirt,  and  then  won- 


BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH.  67 

dering  that  it  was  not  stiff.  But  I  must  say,  at  the  same 
time,  that  this  free  expansion  is  not  required  by  the  vast 
majority  of  boys,  who  are  only  far  too  ready  and  able  to 
spread  themselves  into  "  life "  without  any  aid  whatever. 
What  is  for  one  meat  may  be  for  another  poison,  and  mine 
was  a  very  exceptional  case,  which  required  very  peculiar 
treatment. 

My  father  had  sold  out  his  business  in  1832  to  Mr.  Charles 
S.  Boker,  and  since  then  been  principally  engaged  in  real 
estate  and  stock  speculation.  When  I  returned,  he  had 
bought  a  large  property  between  Chestnut  Market  and  Third 
Streets,  on  which  was  a  hotel  called  Congress  Hall,  with  which 
there  were  connected  many  historical  associations,  for  most 
of  the  noted  men  who  for  many  years  visited  Philadelphia 
had  lived  in  it.  With  it  were  stables  and  other  buildings, 
covering  a  great  deal  of  ground  in  the  busiest  portion  of  the 
city,  but  still  not  in  its  condition  very  profitable.  Then, 
again,  he  purchased  the  old  Arch  Street  prison,  a  vast 
gloomy  pile,  like  four  dead  walls,  a  building  nearly  400  feet 
square.  It  was  empty,  and  I  went  over  it  and  into  the  cells 
many  times.  I  remember  thinking  of  the  misery  and  degra 
dation  of  those  who  had  been  confined  there.  The  disci 
pline  had  been  bad  enough,  for  the  prisoners  had  been  allowed 
to  herd  freely  together.  My  father  tore  it  down,  and  built  a 
block  of  handsome  dwelling-houses  on  its  site.  As  the  trot- 
toir  or  side-walk  was  narrow,  he,  at  a  considerable  loss  to 
himself,  made  a  present  to  the  city  of  a  strip  of  land  which 
left  a  wide  pavement.  I  say  "  at  a  loss,"  for  had  the  houses 
been  deeper  they  would  have  sold  for  much  more.  The  City 
Council  graciously  accepted  the  gift,  with  the  special  condi 
tion  that  my  father  should  pay  all  the  expenses  of  the  trans 
fer  !  From  which  I  learned  the  lesson  that  in  this  life  a  man 
is  quite  as  liable  to  suffer  from  doing  good  as  doing  evil,  un 
less  he  employs  just  as  much  foresight  or  caution  in  the  doing 
thereof.  Some  of  the  most  deeply  regretted  acts  of  my  life, 
which  have  caused  me  most  sincere  and  oft-renewed  repent- 


68  MEMOIRS. 

ance,  were  altogether  and  perfectly  acts  of  generosity  and 
goodness.  The  simple  truth  of  which  is  that  a,  gush,  no  mat 
ter  how  sweet  and  pure  the  water  may  be,  generally  displaces 
something.  Many  more  buildings  did  my  father  buy  and  sell, 
but  committed  withal  the  very  serious  error  of  never  buying 
a  house  as  a  permanent  home  or  a  country  place,  which  he 
might  have  easily  done,  and  even  to  great  profit,  which  error 
in  the  long-run  caused  us  all  great  inconvenience,  and  much 
of  that  shifting  from  place  to  place  which  is  very  bad  for  a 
growing  family.  The  humblest  man  in  such  case  in  a  house 
of  his  own  has  certain  great  advantages  over  even  a  million 
aire  in  lodgings. 

Mr.  S.  C.  AValker  had  given  over  his  school  to  a  younger 
brother  named  Joseph,  but  it  was  still  kept  in  the  old  house 
in  Eighth  Street,  where  also  I  had  taken  my  lessons  in  the 
rudiments  of  Transcendentalism  from  the  Orphic  Alcott.  It 
was  now  a  fairly  good  school  as  things  went  in  those  days, 
with  the  same  lectures  in  Natural  Philosophy  and  Chemistry 
— the  same  mild  doses  of  French  and  Latin.  The  chief 
assistant  was  E.  Otis  Kimball,  subsequently  a  professor  of 
astronomy,  a  very  gentlemanly  and  capable  instructor,  of  a 
much  higher  type  than  any  assistant-teacher  whom  I  had 
ever  before  met.  Under  him  I  read  Voltaire's  "  Charles  the 
Twelfth."  George  II.  Boker,  who  was  one  year  older  than  I, 
and  the  son  of  my  father's  old  partner,  went  to  this  school. 
I  do  not  remember  that  for  the  first  year  or  eighteen  mouths 
after  my  return  to  Philadelphia  there  was  any  incident  of 
note  in  my  life,  or  that  I  read  anything  unless  it  was  Shake 
speare,  and  reviews  which  much  influenced  me.  However,  I 
was  very  wisely  allowed  to  attend  a  gymnasium,  kept  by  a 
man  named  Hudson.  Here  there  was  a  sporting  tone,  much 
pistol-shooting  at  a  mark,  boxing  and  fencing,  prints  of 
prize-fighters  on  the  wall,  and  cuts  from  Life  in  London, 
with  copious  cigar-smoke.  It  was  a  wholesome,  healthy 
place  for  me.  Unfortunately,  I  could  not  afford  the  shoot 
ing,  boxing,  &c.,  but  I  profited  somewhat  by  it,  both  morally 


BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH.  69 

and  physically.  At  this  critical  period,  or  a  little  later,  a  few 
pounds  a  year  judiciously  invested  in  sport  and  "  dissipation  " 
would  have  changed  the  whole  current  of  my  life,  probably 
much  for  the  better,  and  it  would  certainly  have  spared  my 
poor  father  the  conviction,  which  he  had  almost  to  his  death, 
that  I  was  a  sad  and  mortifying  failure  or  exception  which 
had  not  paid  its  investment;  for  which  opinion  he  was  in  no 
wise  to  blame,  it  being  also  that  of  all  his  business  acquaint 
ances,  many  of  whose  sons,  it  was  true,  went  utterly  to  the 
devil,  but  then  it  was  in  the  ancient  intelligible,  common- 
sensible,  usual  paths  of  gambling,  horsing,  stock-brokering, 
selling  short,  or  ruining  all  their  relatives  by  speculating 
with  their  money.  However,  there  was  also  the — rather  for 
lorn — hope  ahead  that  I  would  do  something  in  a  profession. 

The  school  went  on,  Mr.  Walker  studying  law  meantime 
till  he  had  passed  his  examination,  when  it  was  transferred 
to  Mr.  B.  P.  Hunt.  With  this  man,  who  became  and  re 
mained  my  intimate  friend  till  his  death,  thirty  years  after, 
came  the  first  faint  intimation  of  what  was  destined  to  be 
the  most  critical,  the  most  singular,  and  by  far  the  most  im 
portant  period  of  my  life. 

Mr.  Hunt  was,  as  he  himself  declared  to  me  in  after  years, 
not  at  all  fitted  to  be  a  schoolmaster.  He  lacked  the  minor 
or  petty  earnestness  of  character,  and  even  the  training  or 
preparation,  necessary  for  such  work.  On  the  other  hand, 
he  had  read  a  great  deal  in  a  desultory  way ;  he  was  very 
fond  of  all  kinds  of  easy  literature ;  and  when  he  found  that 
any  boy  understood  the  subject,  he  would  talk  with  that  boy 
about  whatever  he  had  been  reading.  Yet  there  was  some 
thing  real  and  stimulative  in  him,  for  there  never  was  a  man 
in  Philadelphia  who  kept  school  for  so  short  a  time  and  with 
so  few  pupils  who  had  among  them  so  many  who  in  after  life 
became  more  or  less  celebrated.  For  he  certainly  made  all 
of  us  who  were  above  idiocy  think  and  live  in  thought  above 
the  ordinary  range  of  school-boy  life.  Thus  I  can  recall 
these  two  out  of  many  incidents : — 


YO  MEMOIRS. 

Finding  me  one  day  at  an  old  book-stand,  he  explained 
to  me  Alduses,  and  Elzevirs,  and  bibliography,  showing  me 
several  specimens,  all  of  which  I  remembered. 

I  had  read  Watson's  "  Annals  of  Philadelphia."  [By  the 
way,  I  knew  the  daughter  of  the  author.]  There  was  an 
allusion  in  it  to  Cornelius  Agrippa,  and  Mr.  Hunt  explained 
and  dilated  on  this  great  sorcerer  to  me  till  I  became  half 
crazy  to  read  the  "  Occult  Philosophy,"  which  I  did  at  a 
roaring  rate  two  years  later. 

One  day  I  saw  Mr.  Hunt  and  Mr.  Kendall  chuckling  to 
gether  over  a  book.  I  divined  a  secret.  Now,  I  was  a  very 
honourable  boy,  and  never  pried  into  secrets,  but  where  a 
quaint  old  book  was  concerned  I  had  no  more  conscience 
than  a  pirate.  And  seeing  Mr.  Hunt  put  the  book  into  his 
desk,  I  abode  my  time  till  he  had  gone  forth,  when  I  raised 
the  lid,  and  .  .  . 

Merciful  angels  and  benevolent  fairies !  it  was  Urquhart's 
translation  of  Rabelais !  One  short  spell  I  read,  no  more ; 
but  it  raised  a  devil  which  has  never  since  been  laid.  Ear 
hath  not  heard,  it  hath  not  entered  into  the  heart  of  man  to 
conceive,  what  I  felt  as  I  realised,  like  a  young  giant  just 
awakened,  that  there  was  in  me  a  stupendous  mental 
strength  to  grasp  and  understand  that  magnificent  mixture 
of  ribaldry  and  learning,  fun  and  wisdom,  deviltry  and  divini 
ty.  In  a  few  pages'  time  I  knew  what  it  all  meant,  and  that 
I  was  gifted  to  understand  it.  I  replaced  the  book  ;  nor  did 
I  read  it  again  for  years,  but  from  that  hour  I  Avas  never 
quite  the  same  person.  The  next  day  I  saw  Callot's  "  Temp 
tation  of  St.  Anthony  "  for  the  first  time  in  a  shop-window, 
and  felt  with  joy  and  pride  that  I  understood  it  out  of 
Rabelais.  Two  young  gentlemen — lawyers  apparently — by 
my  side  thought  it  was  crazy  and  silly.  To  me  it  was  more 
like  an  apocalypse. 

I  am  speaking  plain  truth  when  I  say  that  that  one  quar 
ter  of  an  hour's  reading  of  Rabelais — standing  up — was  to 
me  as  the  light  which  flashed  upon  Saul  journeying  to 


BOYHOOD  AND   YOUTH.  71 

Damascus.  It  seems  to  me  now  as  if  it  were  the  great  event 
of  my  life.  It  came  to  such  a  pass  in  after  years  that  I  could 
have  identified  any  line  in  the  Chronicle  of  Gargantua,  and 
I  also  was  the  suggester,  father,  and  founder  in  London  of 
the  Kabelais  Club,  in  which  were  many  of  the  best  minds  of 
the  time,  but  beyond  it  all  and  brighter  than  all  was  that 
first  revelation. 

It  should  be  remembered  that  I  had  already  perused  Sterne, 
much  of  Swift,  and  far  more  comic  and  satiric  literature  than 
is  known  to  boys,  and,  what  is  far  more  remarkable,  had  thor 
oughly  taken  it  all  into  my  cor  cordium  by  much  repetition 
and  reflection. 

Mr.  Hunt  in  time  put  me  up  to  a  great  deal  of  very  val 
uable  or  curious  belletristic  fair-lettered  or  black-lettered 
reading,  far  beyond  my  years,  though  not  beyond  my  intelli 
gence  and  love.  We  had  been  accustomed  to  pass  to  our 
back-gate  of  the  school  through  Blackberry  Alley — 

"  Blackberry  Alley,  now  Duponceau  Street, 
A  rose  by  any  name  will  smell  as  sweet " — 

which  was  tenanted  principally  by  social  evils.  He  removed 
to  the  corner  of  Seventh  and  Chestnut  Streets.  Under  our 
schoolroom  there  was  a  gambling  den.  I  am  not  aware  that 
these  surroundings  had  any  effect  whatever  upon  the  pupils. 
Among  the  pupils  in  Seventh  Street  was  one  named  Emile 
Tourtel6t.  We  called  him  Oatmeal  Turtledove.  I  had  an 
other  friend  who  was  newly  come  from  Connecticut.  His 
uncle  kept  a  hotel  and  often  gave  him  Havanna  cigars.  We 
often  took  long  walks  together  out  of  town  and  smoked 
them.  He  taught  me  the  song — 

"  On  Springfield  mountains  there  did  dwell," 

with  much  more  quaint  rural  New  England  lore. 

About  this  time  my  grandfather  Leland  died.  I  wept 
sadly  on  hearing  it.  My  father,  who  went  to  Holliston  to 
attend  the  funeral,  brought  me  back  a  fine  collection  of 


72 


MEMOIRS. 


Indian  stone  relics  and  old  American  silver  coins,  for  he  had 
been  in  his  way  an  antiquarian.  Bon  sang  ne  peut  mentir. 
I  had  also  the  certificate  of  some  Society  or  Order  of  Revo 
lutionary  soldiers  to  which  he  had  belonged.  One  of  his 
brothers  had,  as  an  officer,  a  membership  of  the  hereditary 
Order  of  the  Cincinnati.  This  passed  to  another  branch  of 
the  family. 

For  many  years  the  principal  regular  visitor  at  our  house 
was  Mr.  Robert  Stewart,  a  gentleman  of  good  family  and 
excellent  education,  who  had  during  the  wars  with  Napoleon 
made  an  adventurous  voyage  to  France,  and  subsequently 
passed  most  of  his  life  as  Consul  or  diplomatic  agent  in  Cuba. 
He  had  brought  with  him  from  Cuba  a  black  Ebo-African 
slave  named  Juan.  As  the  latter  seemed  to  be  discontented 
in  Philadelphia,  Mr.  Stewart,  who  was  kindness  itself,  offered 
to  send  him  back  freed  to  Cuba  or  Africa,  and  told  him  he 
might  buy  a  modest  outfit  of  clothing,  such  as  suited  his 
condition.  The  negro  went  to  a  first-class  tailor  and  ordered 
splendid  clothes,  which  were  sent  back,  of  course.  The  vin 
dictive  Ebo  was  so  angry  at  this,  that  one  summer  afternoon, 
while  Mr.  Stewart  slept,  the  former  fell  on  him  with  an  axe 
and  knife,  mangled  his  head  horribly,  cut  the  cords  of  his 
hand,  &c.,  and  thought  he  had  killed  him.  But  hearing  his 
victim  groan,  he  was  returning,  when  he  met  another  servant, 
who  said,  "  Juan,  where  are  you  going  ?  "  He  replied,  "  Me 
begin  to  kill  Mars'  Stewart — now  me  go  back  finish  him !  " 
He  was,  of  course,  promptly  arrested.  Mr.  Stewart  recovered, 
but  was  always  blind  of  one  eye,  and  his  right  hand  was 
almost  useless.  Mr.  Stewart  had  in  his  diplomatic  capacity 
seen  many  of  the  pirates  who  abounded  on  the  Spanish  Main 
in  those  days.  He  was  an  admirable  raconteur,  abounding 
in  reminiscences.  His  son  William  inherited  from  an  uncle 
a  Cuban  estate  worth  millions  of  dollars,  and  lived  many 
years  in  Paris.  He  was  a  great  patron  of  (especially  Span 
ish)  art. 

So  I  passed  on  to  my  fourteenth  year,  which  was  des- 


BOYHOOD  AND   YOUTH.  73 

tined  to  be  the  beginning  of  the  most  critical  period  of  my 
life.  My  illnesses  had  increased  in  number  and  severity,  and 
I  had  shot  up  into  a  very  tall  weak  youth.  Mr.  Hunt  gave 
up  teaching,  and  became  editor  of  LittelVs  Magazine.  I  was 
sent  to  the  school  of  Mr.  Hurlbut — as  I  believe  it  was  then 
spelled,  but  I  may  be  wrong.  He  had  been  a  Unitarian 
clergyman,  but  was  an  ungenial,  formal,  rather  harsh  man — 
the  very  opposite  of  Mr.  Hunt.  My  schoolmates  soon  found 
that  though  so  tall,  I  was  physically  very  weak,  and  many  of 
them  continually  bullied  and  annoyed  me.  Once  I  was  driven 
into  a  formal  stand-up  fight  with  one  younger  by  a  year,  but 
much  stronger.  I  did  my  best,  but  was  beaten.  I  offered  to 
fight  him  then  in  Indian  fashion  with  a  hug,  but  this  he 
scornfully  declined.  After  this  he  never  met  me  without 
insulting  me,  for  he  had  a  base  nature,  as  his  after-life  proved. 
These  humiliations  had  a  bad  effect  upon  me,  for  I  was 
proud  and  nervous,  and,  like  many  such  boys,  often  very 
foolish. 

But  I  had  a  few  very  good  friends.  Among  these  was 
Charles  Macalester.  One  day  when  I  had  been  bullied  shame 
fully  by  the  knot  of  boys  who  always  treated  me  badly,  he 
ran  after  me  up  Walnut  Street,  and,  almost  with  tears  in  his 
eyes,  assured  me  of  his  sympathy.  There  were  two  other 
intimates.  George  Patrullo,  of  .Spanish  parentage,  and  Eich- 
ard  Seldener,  son  of  the  Swedish  Consul.  They  read  a  great 
deal.  One  day  it  chanced  that  Seldener  had  in  his  bosom  a 
very  large  old-fashioned  flint-lock  horse-pistol  loaded  with 
shot.  By  him  and  me  stood  Patrullo  and  William  Henry 
Hurlbut,  who  has  since  become  a  very  well-known  character. 
Thinking  that  Seldener's  pistol  was  unloaded,  Patrullo,  to 
frighten  young  Hurlbut,  pulled  the  weapon  suddenly  from 
Seldener's  breast,  put  it  between  Hurlbut's  eyes  and  fired. 
The  latter  naturally  started  to  one  side,  so  it  happened  that 
he  only  received  one  shot  in  his  ear.  The  charge  went  into 
the  wall,  where  it  made  a  mark  like  a  bullet's,  which  was  long 
visible.  George  Patrullo  was  drowned  not  long  after  while 


^4  MEMOIRS. 

swimming  in  the  Schuylkill  river,  and  Richard  Seldener 
perished  on  an  Atlantic  steamer,  which  was  never  heard  of. 

On  the  other  hand,  something  took  place  which  cast  a 
marvellous  light  into  this  darkened  life  of  mine.  For  one 
day  my  father  bought  and  presented  to  me  a  share  in  the 
Philadelphia  Library.  This  was  a  collection  which  even 
then  consisted  of  more  than  60,000  well-chosen  volumes. 
And  then  began  such  a  life  of  reading  as  was,  I  sincerely 
believe,  unusual  in  such  youth.  My  first  book  was  "  Arthur 
of  Little  Britaine,"  which  I  finished  in  a  week ;  then  "  Newes 
from  New  Englande,  1G36,"  and  the  "  Historic  of  Clodoal- 
dus."  Before  long  I  discovered  that  there  were  in  the  Lo- 
ganian  section  of  the  library  several  hundred  volumes  of 
occult  philosophy,  a  collection  once  formed  by  an  artist 
named  Cox,  and  of  these  I  really  read  nearly  every  one. 
Cornelius  Agrippa  and  Barret's  "  Magus,"  Paracelsus,  the 
black-letter  edition  of  Reginald  Scot,  Glanville,  and  Gaffarel, 
Trithemius,  Baptista  Porta,  and  God  knows  how  many  Rosi- 
crucian  writers  became  familiar  to  me.  Once  when  I  had 
only  twenty-five  cents  I  gave  it  for  a  copy  of  "  Waters  of  the 
East "  by  Eugenius  Philalethes,  or  Thomas  Vaughan. 

All  of  this  led  me  to  the  Mystics  and  Quietists.  I  read  Dr. 
Boardman's  "  History  of  Quakerism,"  which  taught  me  that 
Fox  grew  out  of  Behmen  ;  and  I  picked  up  one  day  Poiret's 
French  work  on  the  Mystics,  which  was  quite  a  handbook  or 
guide  to  the  whole  literature.  But  these  books  were  but  a 
small  part  of  what  I  read  ;  for  at  one  time,  taking  another 
turn  towards  old  English,  I  went  completely  through  Chaucer 
and  Gower,  both  in  black  letter,  the  collections  of  Ritson, 
Weber,  Ellis,  and  I  know  not  how  many  more  of  mediaeval 
ballads  and  romances,  and  very  thoroughly  and  earnestly  in 
deed  Warton's  "  History  of  English  Poetry."  Then  I  read  Sis- 
mondi's  "  Literature  of  Southern  Europe  "  and  Longfellow's 
"  Poets  and  Poetry  of  Europe,"  which  set  me  to  work  on 
Raynouard  and  other  collections  of  Provencal  poetry,  in  the 
knowledge  of  which  I  made  some  progress,  and  also  St. 


BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH.  75 

Pelaye's,  Le  Grand's,  Costello's,  and  other  books  on  the 
Trouveurs.  I  translated  into  rhyme  and  sent  to  a  maga 
zine,  of  which  I  in  after  years  became  editor,  one  or  two  la'is, 
which  were  rejected,  I  think  unwisely,  for  they  were  by  no 
means  bad.  Then  I  had  a  fancy  for  Miscellanea,  and  read 
the  works  of  D'Israeli  the  elder  and  Burton's  "Anatomy." 

One  day  I  made  a  startling  discovery,  for  I  took  at  a 
venture  from  the  library  the  black-letter  first  edition  of  the 
poems  of  Francois  Villon.  I  was  then  fifteen  years  old. 
Never  shall  I  forget  the  feeling,  which  Heine  compares  to 
the  unexpected  finding  of  a  shaft  of  gold  in  a  gloomy  mine, 
which  shot  through  me  as  I  read  for  the  first  time  these  bal 
lades.  Now-a-days  people  are  trained  to  them  through  sec 
ond-hand  sentiment.  Villon  has  become — Heaven  bless  the 
mark  I— fashionable !  and  aesthetic.  I  got  at  him  "straight" 
out  of  black-letter  reading  in  boyhood  as  a  find  of  my  own, 
and  it  was  many,  many  years  ere  I  ever  met  with  a  single  soul 
who  had  heard  of  him.  I  at  once  translated  the  "  Song  of  the 
Ladies  of  the  Olden  Time  "  ;  and  I  knew  what  bon  bee  meant, 
which  is  more  than  one  of  Villon's  great  modern  translators 
has  done  !  Also  heaulmiere,  which  is  not  helmet-maker,  as 
another  supposes. 

I  went  further  in  this  field  than  I  have  room  to  describe. 
I  even  read  the  rococo-sweet  poems  of  Joachim  du  Bellay. 
In  this  year  my  father  gave  me  "  The  Doctor,"  by  Eobert 
Southey,  a  work  which  I  read  and  re-read  assiduously  for 
many  years,  and  was  guided  by  it  to  a  vast  amount  of  odd 
reading,  Philemon  Holland's  translation  of  Pliny  being  one 
of  the  books.  This  induced  me  to  read  all  of  Southey's 
poems,  which  I  did,  not  from  the  library,  but  from  a  book 
store,  where  I  had  free  run  and  borrowing  privileges,  as  I 
well  might,  since  my  father  lost  £4,000  by  its  owner. 

While  at  Mr.  Greene's  school  I  had  given  me  Alsopp's 
"  Life  and  Letters  of  Coleridge,"  which  I  read  through  many 
times ;  then  in  my  thirteenth  year,  in  Philadelphia,  I  read 
with  great  love  Charles  Lamb's  works  and  most  of  the  works 


76  MEMOIRS. 

of  Coleridge.  Mr.  Alcott  had  read  Wordsworth  into  us  in 
illimitable  quantities,  so  that  I  soon  had  a  fair  all-round 
knowledge  of  the  Lakers,  whom  I  dearly  loved.  Now  there 
was  a  certain  souppon  of  Mysticism  or  Transcendentalism 
and  Pantheism  in  Coleridge,  and  even  in  Wordsworth,  which 
my  love  of  rocks  and  rivers  and  fairy  lore  easily  enabled  me 
to  detect  by  sympathy. 

But  all  of  this  was  but  a  mere  preparation  for  and  fore 
shadowing  of  a  great  mental  development  and  very  preco 
cious  culture  which  was  rapidly  approaching.  I  now  speak 
of  what  happened  to  me  from  1838  to  1840,  principally  in 
the  latter  year.  If  I  use  extravagant,  vain  words,  I  beg  the 
reader  to  pardon  me.  Perhaps  this  will  never  be  published, 
therefore  sit  verbo  venia  ! 

I  had  become  deeply  interested  in  the  new  and  bold  de 
velopment  which  was  then  manifesting  itself  in  the  Unitarian 
Church.  Channing,  whom  I  often  heard  preach,  had  some 
thing  in  common  with  the  Quietists  ;  Mr.  Furness  was  really 
a  thinker  "  out  of  bounds,"  while  in  reality  as  gentle  and 
purely  Christian  as  could  be.  There  Avas  something  new  in 
the  air,  and  this  Something  I,  in  an  antiquated  form,  had 
actually  preceded.  It  was  really  only  a  rechauffe  of  the  N"eo- 
Platonism  which  lay  at  the  bottom  of  Porphyry,  Proclus, 
Psellus,  Jamblichus,  with  all  of  whom  I  was  fairly  well  ac 
quainted.  Should  any  one  doubt  this,  I  can  assure  him  that 
I  still  possess  a  full  copy  of  the  "  Poemander  "  or  "  Piman- 
der  "  of  Hermes  Trismegistus,  made  by  me  in  my  sixteenth 
year,  which  most  assuredly  no  mortal  could  ever  have  under 
stood  or  made,  or  cared  to  make,  if  he  had  not  read  the  Neo- 
Platonists  ;  for  Marsilius  Ficinus  himself  regarded  this  work 
as  a  pendant  'to  them,  and  published  it  as  such.  Which  work 
I  declared  was  not  a  Christian  Platonic  forgery,  but  based 
on  old  Egyptian  works,  as  has  since  been  well-nigh  proved 
from  recent  discoveries.  (I  think  it  was  Dr.  Garnett 
who,  hearing  me  once  declare  in  the  British  Museum  that 
I  believed  Hermes  was  based  on  an  ancient  Egyptian 


BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH.  77 

text,  sent  for  a  French  work  in  which  the  same  view  was 
advanced.) 

The  ignorance,  narrow-mindedness,  and  odium  theoloyicum 
which  prevailed  in  America  until  1840  was  worse  than  that 
in  Europe  under  the  Church  in  the  Middle  Ages,  for  even  in 
the  latter  there  had  been  an  Agobard  and  an  Abelard,  Knight- 
Templar  agnostics,  and  illuminati  of  different  kinds.  The 
Unitarians,  who  believed  firmly  in  every  point  of  Christianity, 
and  that  man  was  saved  by  Jesus,  and  would  be  damned  if 
he  did  not  put  faith  in  him  as  the  Son  of  God,  were  regarded 
literally  and  truly  by  everybody  as  no  better  than  infidels  be 
cause  they  believed  that  Christ  was  sent  by  God,  and  that 
Three  could  not  be  One.  Every  sect,  with  rare  exceptions, 
preached,  especially  the  Presbyterians,  that  the  vast  majority 
even  of  Christians  would  be  damned,  thereby  giving  to  the 
devil  that  far  greater  power  than  God  against  which  Bishop 
Agobard  had  protested.  As  for  a  freethinker  or  infidel,  he 
was  pointed  at  in  the  streets  ;  and  if  a  man  had  even  seen  a 
"  Deist,"  he  spoke  of  it  as  if  he  had  beheld  a  murderer. 
Against  all  this  some  few  were  beginning  to  revolt. 

There  came  a  rumour  that  there  was  something  springing 
up  in  Boston  called  Transcendentalism.  Nobody  knew  what 
it  was,  but  it  was  dreamy,  mystical,  crazy,  and  infideleterious 
to  religion.  Firstly,  it  was  connected  with  Thomas  Carlyle 
and  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  and  finally  with  everything  Ger 
man.  The  new  school  of  liberal  Unitarians  favoured  it.  I 
had  a  quick  intuition  that  here  was  something  for  me  to  work 
at.  I  bought  Carlyle's  Sartor  Resarttis,  first  edition,  and 
read  it  through  forty  times  ere  I  left  college,  of  which  I  "  kept 
count." 

My  record  here  as  regards  some  books  may  run  a  little 
ahead ;  but  either  before  I  went  to  college  or  during  my  first 
year  there  (almost  all  before  or  by  1840-'41),  I  had  read  Car 
lyle's  "  Miscellanies  "  thoroughly,  Emerson's  "  Essays,"  a 
translation  of  Kant's  "  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,"  the  first 
half  of  it  many  times ;  Dugald  Stewart's  works,  something 


78  MEMOIRS. 

of  Reid,  Locke,  and  Ilobbes's  "  Leviathan  " ;  had  bought  and 
read  French  versions  of  Schelling's  "  Transcendental  Ideal 
ism  "  and  Fichte's  fascinating  "  Destiny  of  Man  "  ;  studied  a 
small  handbook  of  German  philosophy ;  the  works  of  Cam- 
panella  and  Vanini  (Bruno  much  later,  for  his  works  were 
then  exceeding  rare.  I  now  have  Weber's  edition),  and  also, 
with  intense  relish  and  great  profit,  an  old  English  version  of 
Spinoza's  Tractatus  Thcolorjico-Politicus.  In  which  last  work 
I  had  the  real  key  and  clue  to  all  German  philosophy  and 
Rationalism,  as  I  in  time  found  out.  I  must  here  modestly 
mention  that  I  had,  to  a  degree  which  I  honestly  believe  sel 
dom  occurs,  the  art  of  rapid  yet  of  carefully-observant  read 
ing.  George  Boker  once,  quite  unknown  to  me,  gave  me 
something  to  read,  watched  my  eyes  as  I  went  from  line  to 
line,  timed  me  by  watch,  and  finally  examined  me  on  what  I 
had  read.  He  published  the  incident  long  after,  said  he  had 
repeated  it  more  than  once  a  mon  insu,  and  that  it  was  re 
markable. 

Such  a  dual  life  as  I  at  this  time  led  it  has  seldom  entered 
into  the  head  of  man  to  imagine.  I  was,  on  the  one  hand,  a 
school-boy  in  a  jacket,  leading  a  humiliated  life  among  my 
kind,  all  because  I  was  sickly  and  weak  ;  while,  on  the  other 
hand,  utterly  alone  and  without  a  living  soul  to  whom  I  could 
exchange  an  idea,  I  was  mastering  rapidly  and  boldly  that 
which  was  then  in  reality  the  tremendous  problem  of  the  age. 
I  can  now  see  that,  as  regards  its  real  antique  bases,  I  was  far 
more  deeply  read  and  better  grounded  than  were  even  its  most 
advanced  leaders  in  Anglo-Saxony.  For  I  soon  detected  in 
Carlyle,  and  much  more  in  Emerson,  a  very  slender  knowl 
edge  of  that  stupendous  and  marvellous  ancient  Mysticism 
which  sent  its  soul  in  burning  faith  and  power  to  the  depth 
of  "  the  downward-borne  elements  of  God,"  as  Hermes  called 
them.  I  missed  even  the  rapt  faith  of  such  a  weak  writer  as 
Sir  Kenelm  Digby,  much  more  Zoroaster !  Vigourous  and 
clever  and  bold  writers  they  were — Carlyle  was  far  beyond  me 
in  literary  art— but  true  Pantheists  they  were  not.  And  they 


BOYHOOD  AND   YOUTH.  f9 

were  men  of  great  genius,  issuing  essays  to  the  age  on  popu 
lar,  or  political,  or  "  literary  "  topics  ;  but  philosophers  they 
most  assuredly  were  not,  nor  men  tremendous  in  spiritual 
truth.  And  yet  it  was  precisely  as  philosophers  and  thauma- 
turgists  and  revealers  of  occulta  that  they  posed — especially 
Emerson.  And  they  dabbled  or  trifled  with  free  thought  and 
"  immorality,"  crying  Goethe  up  as  the  Light  of  Lights,  while 
all  their  inner  souls  were  bound  in  the  most  Puritanical  and 
petty  goody-goodyism.  Though  there  were  traces  of  grim 
Scotch  humour  in  Carlyle,  my  patron  saint  and  master,  Rabe 
lais,  or  aught  like  him,  had  no  credit  with  them. 

They  paddled  in  Pantheism,  but  as  regards  it,  both  lacked 
the  stupendous  faith  and  inspiration  of  the  old  adepti,  who 
flung  their  whole  souls  into  God ;  and  yet  they  sneered  at 
Materialism  and  Science. 

I  did  not  then  see  all  of  this  so  clearly  as  I  now  do,  but  I 
very  soon  found  that,  as  in  after  years  it  was  said  that  Comte- 
ism  was  Catholicism  without  Christianity,  so  the  Carlyle- 
Emersonian  Transcendentalism  was  Mysticism  without  mys 
tery.  ISTor  did  I  reflect  that  it  was  a  calling  people  from  the 
nightmared  slumber  of  frozen  orthodoxy  or  bigotry  to  come 
and  see  a  marvellous  new  thing.  And  when  they  came,  they 
found  out  that  this  marvellous  thing  was  that  they  had  been 
awakened,  "only  that  and  nothing  more";  and  that  was  the 
great  need  of  the  time,  and  worth  more  than  any  magic  or 
theosophy.  But  I  had  expected,  in  simple  ignorant  faith,  that 
the  sacred  mysteries  of  some  marvellous  cabala  would  be  re 
vealed,  and  not  finding  what  I  wanted  (though  indeed  I  dis 
covered  much  that  was  worldly  new  to  me),  I  returned  to  the 
good  old  ghost-haunted  paths  trodden  by  my  ancestors,  to 
dryads  and  elves  and  voices  from  the  stars,  and  the  archceus 
formed  by  the  astral  spirit  (not  the  modern  Blavatsky  affair, 
by-the-bye),  which  entyped  all  things  .  .  .  and  so  went  elv- 
ing  and  dreaming  on  'mid  ruins  old. 

Be  it  observed  that  all  this  time  I  really  did  not  knoAv 
what  I  knew.  Boys  are  greatly  influenced  by  their  sur- 


30  MEMOIRS. 

roundings,  and  in  those  days  every  one  about  me  never  spoke 
of  Transcendentalism  or  "  Germanism,"  or  even  "  bookish- 
ness,"  without  a  sneer.  I  was  borne  by  a  mysterious  inner 
impulse  which  I  could  not  resist  into  this  terrible  whirlpool 
of  belles-lettres,  occulta,  facetiae,  and  philosophy ;  but  1  had, 
God  knows,  little  cause  for  pride  that  I  read  so  much,  for  it 
was  on  every  hand  in  some  way  turned  against  me.  If  it 
had  only  been  reading  like  that  of  other  human  beings,  it 
might  have  been  endured  ;  but  I  was  always  seen  coming  and 
going  with  parchment-bound  tomes.  Once  I  implored  my 
father,  when  I  was  thirteen  or  fourteen,  to  let  me  buy  a  cer 
tain  book,  which  he  did.  This  work,  which  was  as  dear  to 
me  as  a  new  doll  to  a  girl  for  a  long  time,  was  the  Reducto- 
rium  or  moralisation  of  the  whole  Bible  by  Petrus  Berchorius, 
black-letter,  folio,  Basle,  1511.  It  was  from  the  library  of  a 
great  and  honest  scholar,  and,  as  the  catalogue  stated,  "  con 
tained  MS.  notes  on  the  margin  by  Melanchthon." 

Promising,  this,  for  an  American  youth  who  was  expected 
to  go  into  business  or  study  a  profession  ! 

AVhile  at  Hurlbut's  school  I  took  lessons  in  Spanish. 
There  was  a  Spanish  boy  from  Malaga,  a  kind  of  half-serv 
ant,  \\z\i-protege  in  a  family  near  us,  with  whom  I  practised 
speaking  the  language,  and  also  had  some  opportunity  with 
a  few  Cubans  who  visited  our  family.  One  of  them  had  been 
a  governor-general.  He  was  a  Gallician  by  birth,  but  I  did 
not  know  this,  and  innocently  asked  him  one  day  if  los  Gal- 
legos  no  son  los  Irlandeses  (TEspana  ?— if  the  Gallicians  were 
not  the  Irish  of  Spain— which  drew  a  grave  caution  from  my 
brother,  who  knew  better  than  I  how  the  land  lay.  I  really 
attained  some  skill  in  Spanish,  albeit  to  this  day  "  Don  Quix 
ote  "  demands  from  me  a  great  deal  of  dictionary.  But,  as  I 
said  before,  I  learn  languages  with  incredible  difficulty,  a  fact 
which  I  cannot  reconcile  with  the  extreme  interest  which  I 
take  in  philology  and  linguistics,  and  the  discoveries  which 
I  have  made ;  as,  for  instance,  that  of  Shelf  a  in  England,  or 
my  labours  in  jargons,  such  as  Pidgin-English,  Slang,  and 


BOYHOOD  AND    YOUTH.  81 

Eomany.  But,  as  the  reader  has  probably  perceived,  I  was  a 
boy  with  an  inherited  good  constitution  only  from  the  pater 
nal  side,  and  a  not  very  robust  one  from  my  mother,  while 
my  mind,  weakened  by  long  illness,  had  been  strangely  stimu 
lated  by  many  disorders,  nervous  fevers  being  frequent  among 
them.  In  those  days  I  was,  as  my  mother  said,  almost 
brought  up  on  calomel — and  she  might  have  added  quinine. 
The  result  of  so  much  nervousness,  excessive  stimulating  by 
medicine,  and  rapid  growth  was  a  too  great  susceptibility  to 
poetry,  humour,  art,  and  all  that  was  romantic,  quaint,  and 
mysterious,  while  I  found  it  very  hard  to  master  any  really 
dry  subject.  What  would  have  set  me  all  right  would  have 
been  careful  physical  culture,  boxing,  so  as  to  protect  mo 
from  my  school  persecutors,  and  amusement  in  a  healthy 
sense,  of  which  I  had  almost  none  whatever. 

Hurlbut's  became  at  last  simply  intolerable,  and  my 
parents,  finding  out  in  some  way  that  I  was  worse  for  being 
there,  removed  me  to  a  far  better  school  kept  by  E.  C. 
Wines,  who  had  written  books  on  education,  and  attained 
some  fame  thereby.  This  was  in  1S39-'40,  and  I  was  there 
to  be  prepared  for  college.  We  were  soon  introduced  to  an 
old  French  gentleman,  who  was  to  teach  us,  and  who  asked 
the  other  boys  Avhat  French  works  they  had  read.  Some 
had  gone  through  Telemaquej-or  Paul  et  Virginie,  Florian, 
etcetera.  The  good-goody  nature  of  such  reading  awoke  in 
me  my  sense  of  humour.  When  it  came  to  my  turn,  and  I 
was  asked,  I  replied,  "  La  Pucelle  a?  Orleans  and  Dictionnaire 
Philosophique  of  Voltaire,  the  Confessions  of  Eousseau,  the 
Poems  of  Villon,  Charles  cT  Orleans,  Clotilde  de  'Surville,  and 
more  or  less  of  Helvetius,  D'Holbach,  and  Condillac."  Here 
the  professor,  feeling  himself  quizzed,  cast  forth  his  hands  as 
in  disgust  and  horror,  and  cried,  "Assez !  assez  I  Unhappy 
boy,  you  have  raked  through  the  library  of  the  devil  down  to 
the  dregs !  "  Nor  was  I  "  selling  "  him,  for  I  certainly  had 
read  the  works,  as  the  records  of  the  Philadelphia  Library 
can  in  a  great  measure  prove,  and  did  not  speak  by  hearsay. 


82  MEMOIRS. 

I  had  at  this  time  several  severe  long  attacks  of  illness 
with  much  pain,  which  I  always  bore  well,  as  a  matter  of 
course  or  habit.  But  rather  oddly,  while  in  the  midst  of  my 
Transcendentalism,  and  reading  every  scrap  of  everything 
about  Germany  which  I  could  get,  and  metaphysics,  and 
study — i  was  very  far  gone  then,  and  used  to  go  home  from 
school  and  light  a  pipe  with  a  long  wooden  stem,  and  study 
the  beloved  "  Critic  of  Pure  Reason  "  or  Carlyle's  Miscella 
nies,  having  discovered  that  smoking  was  absolutely  necessary 
in  such  reading — [De  Quincey  required  a  quart  of  laudanum 
to  enable  him  to  enjoy  German  metaphysics] — there  came  a 
strange  gleam  of  worldly  dissipation,  of  Avhich  I  never  think 
without  pleasure.  I  had  passed  one  summer  vacation  on  a 
farm  near  Philadelphia,  where  I  learned  something  in  wood- 
ranging  about  wild  herbs  and  catching  land-tortoises  and 
"  coon-hunting,"  and  had  been  allowed  to  hire  and  ride  a 
horse. 

I  did  not  know  it,  but  this  horse  had  thrown  over  his 
head  everybody  who  had  ever  mounted  him.  He  was  a  per 
fect  devil,  but  also  a  perfect  gentleman.  He  soon  took  my 
measure,  and  resolved  to  treat  me  kindly  as  &  protege.  When 
we  both  wanted  a  gallop,  he  made  such  time  as  nobody  be 
fore  had  dreamed  was  in  him ;  when  he  was  lazy,  he  only 
had  to  turn  his  head  and  look  at  me,  and  1  knew  what  that 
meant  and  conformed  unto  him,  He  had  a  queer  fancy  at 
times  to  quietly  steal  up  and  put  his  hoof  on  my  foot  so  as  to 
hurt  me,  and  then  there  was  an  impish  laugh  in  his  eye. 
For  he  laughed  at  me,  and  I  knew  it.  There  is  really  such 
a  thing  as  a  horse-laugh.  One  day  we  passed  through  a 
drove  of  sheep,  and  he  did  not  like  it — no  horse  does.  After 
a  while  I  wanted  to  go  by  a  certain  road,  but  he  refused 
sternly  to  take  it.  I  found  soon  after  that  if  I  had  done  so 
we  must  have  met  the  sheep  again.  He  had,  in  fact,  under 
stood  the  route  far  better  than  I.  I  once  got  a  mile  out  of 
him  in  three  minutes — more  or  less;  but  he  had  seen  me 
look  at  my  watch,  and  knew  that  I  wanted  to  see  what  he 


BOYHOOD  AND   YOUTH.  83 

could  do.  He  never  did  it  again.  I  may  have  been  mis 
taken  here,  but  it  was  my  impression  at  the  time.  Perhaps 
if  I  had  gone  on  much  longer  in  intimacy  with  him  I  might 
have  profited  mentally  by  it,  and  acquired  what  Americans 
call  "  horse-sense,"  of  which  I  had  some  need.  It  is  the  sixth 
— or  the  first — sense  of  all  Yankees  and  Scotchmen.  When 
I  returned  to  the  city  I  was  allowed  to  hire  a  horse  for  a  few 
times  from  a  livery  stable,  and  went  out  riding  with  a  friend. 
This  friend  was  a  rather  precociously  dissipated  youth,  and 
with  him  I  had  actually  now  and  then — very  rarely — a  glass 
at  a  bar  and  oysters.  He  soon  left  me  for  wilder  associates, 
and  I  relapsed  into  my  old  sober  habits.  Strange  as  it  may 
seem,  I  believe  that  I  was  really  on  the  brink  of  becoming 
like  other  boys.  But  it  all  faded  away.  Now  it  became  im 
perative  that  I  should  study  in  earnest.  I  used  to  rise  at 
three  or  four  in  the  morning.  What  with  hard  work  and 
great  fear  of  not  passing  my  matriculation,  I  contrived  to 
get  up  so  much  Latin,  Greek,  and  mathematics,  that  Mr. 
Wines  thought  I  might  attempt  it,  and  so  one  fine  summer 
day  my  father  went  with  me  to  Princeton.  I  was  in  a  fear 
ful  state  of  nervous  anxiety. 

COLLEGE    LIFE. 

PRINCETON. 

We  went  to  Princeton,  where  I  presented  my  letters  of 
introduction,  passed  a  by  no  means  severe  examination  for 
the  Freshman's  class,  was  very  courteously  received  by  the 
professors  to  whom  I  was  commended,  and,  to  my  inexpressi 
ble  delight,  found  myself  a  college  student.  Rooms  were 
secured  for  me  at  a  Mrs.  Burroughs',  opposite  Nassau  Hall ; 
the  adjoining  apartment  was  occupied  by  Mr.  Craig  Biddle, 
now  a  judge.  George  H.  Boker  was  then  at  the  end  of  his 
Sophomore  year,  the  term  having  but  a  few  days  to  run.  He 
had  rooms  in  college  and  lived  in  unexampled  style,  having 
actually  a  carpet  on  his  floor  and  superior  furniture,  also  a 


84  MEMOIRS. 

good  collection  of  books,  chiefly  standard  English  poets.  He 
at  once  took  me  in  hand  and  gave  me  a  character. 

Princeton  College  was  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  strict 
est  of  "  Old  School "  Presbyterian  theologians.  Piety  and 
mathematics  rated  extravagantly  high  in  the  course.  The 
latter  study  was  literally  reckoned  in  the  grades  as  being  of 
more  account  than  all  the  rest  collectively.  Thus,  as  eventu 
ally  happened  to  me,  a  student  might  excel  in  Latin,  English, 
and  Natural  Philosophy — in  fact,  in  almost  everything,  good 
conduct  included — and  yet  be  the  last  in  the  class  if  he  neg 
lected  mathematics.  There  was  no  teaching  of  French,  be 
cause,  as  was  naively  said,  students  might  read  the  irreligious 
works  extant  in  that  language,  and  of  course  no  other  modern 
language ;  as  for  German,  one  would  as  soon  have  proposed 
to  raise  the  devil  there  as  a  class  in  it.  If  there  had  been  an 
optional  course,  as  at  Cambridge,  Massachusetts,  by  which 
German  was  accepted  in  lieu  of  mathematics,  I  should  proba 
bly  have  taken  the  first  honour,  instead  of  the  last.  And 
yet,  with  a  little  more  Latin,  I  was  really  qualified,  on  the 
day  when  I  matriculated  at  Princeton,  to  have  passed  for  a 
Doctor  of  Philosophy  in  Heidelberg,  as  I  subsequently  accu 
rately  ascertained. 

There  were  three  or  four  men  of  great  ability  in  the  Fac 
ulty  of  the  University.  One  of  these  was  Professor  Joseph 
Henry,  in  those  days  the  first  natural  philosopher  and  lecturer 
on  science  in  America.  I  had  the  fortune  in  time  to  become 
quite  a  special  protege  of  his.  Another  was  Professor  James 
Alexander,  who  taught  Latin,  rhetoric,  and  mental  philoso 
phy.  He  was  so  clear-headed  and  liberally  learned,  that  I 
always  felt  sure  that  he  must  at  heart  have  been  far  beyond 
the  bounds  of  Old  School  theology,  but  he  had  an  iron 
Roman-like  sternness  of  glance  which  quite  suited  a  Cove 
nanter.  The  most  remarkable  of  all  was  Albert  Dodd,  Pro 
fessor  of  Mathematics  and  Lecturer  on  Architecture.  This 
man  was  a  genius  of  such  a  high  order,  that  had  it  not  been 
for  the  false  position  in  which  he  was  placed,  he  would  have 


BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH.  85 

given  to  the  world  great  works.  The  false  position  was  this : 
he  was  the  chief  pulpit  orator  of  the  old  school,  and  had 
made  war  on  the  Transcendentalist  movement  in  an  able 
article  in  the  Princeton  Review  (which,  by  the  way,  was  use 
ful  in  guiding  me  to  certain  prohibited  works,  before  un 
known  to  me).  But  as  he  was  a  man  of  poetic  genial  feel 
ing,  he  found  himself  irresistibly  fascinated  by  what  he  had 
hunted  down,  and  so  read  Plato,  and  when  he  died  actually 
left  behind  him  a  manuscript  translation  of  Spinoza's  works  ! 

The  reader  may  imagine  what  a  marvellous  find  I  was  to 
him.  George  Boker,  who  was  ages  beyond  me  in  knowledge 
of  the  world — man  and  woman — said  one  day  that  he  could 
imagine  how  Dodd  sat  and  chuckled  to  hear  me  talk,  which 
remark  I  did  not  at  all  understand  and  thought  rather  stupid. 
I  remember  that  during  my  first  call  on  him  we  discussed 
Sartor  Resartus^  and  I  expressed  it  as  my  firm  conviction 
that  the  idea  of  the  Clothes  Philosophy  had  been  taken  from 
the  Treatise  on  Fire  and  Salt  by  the  Eosicrucian  Lord  Blaise. 
Then,  in  all  naivete  and  innocence  of  effect,  I  discussed  some 
point  in  Kant's  "  Critic,"  and  a  few  other  trifles  not  usu 
ally  familiar  to  sub-Freshmen,  and  took  my  departure,  very 
much  pleased  at  having  entered  on  a  life  where  my  favourite 
reading  did  not  really  seem  to  be  quite  silly  or  disreputable. 
I  remember,  however,  being  very  much  surprised  indeed  at 
finding  that  the  other  students,  in  whom  I  expected  to  en 
counter  miracles  of  learning,  or  youth  far  superior  to  myself 
in  erudition  and  critical  knowledge,  did  not  quite  come  up  to 
my  anticipations.  However,  as  they  were  all  far  beyond  me 
in  mathematics,  I  supposed  their  genius  had  all  gone  in  that 
direction,  for  well  I  knew  that  the  toughest  page  in  Fichte 
was  a  mere  trifle  compared  to  the  awful  terrors  of  the  Rule  of 
Three,  and  so  treated  them  as  young  men  who  were  my  su 
periors  in  other  and  greater  things. 

There  were  wearisome  morning  prayers  in  the  chapel,  and 
roll-call  every  morning,  and  then  an  hour  of  recitation  before 
breakfast,  study  till  ten  or  eleven,  study  and  recitation  in  the 
5 


86 


MEMOIRS. 


afternoon,  and  evening  prayers  again  and  study  in  the  even 
ing.  The  Sabbath  was  anything  but  a  day  of  rest,  for  we  hud 
the  same  prayers ;  morning  attendance  at  church ;  afternoon, 
the  learning  and  reciting  of  four  chapters  in  the  Bible ;  while 
we  were  expected  in  the  evening  to  master  one  or  two  chap 
ters  in  the  Greek  Testament.  I  am  not  sorry  that  I  used  to 
read  books  during  sermon-time.  It  kept  me  from,  or  from 
me,  a  great  deal  of  wickedness.  Videlicet  : 

The  sermons  consisted  principally  of  assertion  that  man 
himself  consisted  chiefly  of  original  sin.  As  evil  communica 
tions  corrupt  good  manners,  I  myself,  being  young  and  im 
pressionable,  began  to  believe  that  I  too  was  an  awful  sinner. 
Not  knowing  where  else  to  look  for  it,  I  concluded  that  it  con 
sisted  in  my  inability  to  learn  mathematics.  I  do  not  dis 
tinctly  remember  whether  I  prayed  to  Heaven  that  I  might 
be  able  to  cross  the  Pons  Asiuorum,  but  "  anyway  "  my  prayer 
was  granted  when  I  graduated. 

Another  stock-piece  in  the  repertoire  consisted  of  attacks 
on  Voltaire,  Tom  Paine,  and  other  antiquated  Deists  or  infi 
dels.  I  had  read  with  great  contempt  a  copy  of  "  The  Eights 
of  Man  "  belonging  to  my  genial  uncle  Amos.  I  say  with 
great  contempt,  for  I  always  despised  that  kind  of  free 
thought  which  consisted  chiefly  of  enmity  to  Christianity. 
Now  I  can  see  that  Voltaire  and  his  followers  were  quite  in 
the  right  in  warring  on  terrible  and  immediate  abuses  which 
oppressed  mankind ;  but  I  had  learned  from  Spinoza  to  be 
lieve  that  every  form  of  faith  was  good  in  its  way  or  accord 
ing  to  its  mission  or  time,  and  that  it  was  silly  to  ridicule 
Christianity  because  the  tale  of  Balaam's  ass  was  incredible. 
Paine  was  to  me  just  what  a  Positivist  now  is  to  a  Darwinian 
or  Agnostic,  and  such  preaching  against  "  infidels  "  seemed 
to  me  like  pouring  water  on  a  drowned  mouse.  There  had 
always  been  in  Mr.  Furness's  teaching  a  very  decided  degree 
of  Rationalism,  and  I  had  advanced  far  more  boldly  on  the 
track.  I  remember  reading  translations  from  Schleiermacher 
and  buying  Strauss's  "  Life  of  Jesus  "  before  I  went  to  Prince- 


BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH.  87 

ton — I  saw  Strauss  himself  in  after  years  at  Weinsberg,  in 
German}' — but  at  Princeton  the  slightest  approach  to  explain 
ing  the  most  absurd  story  in  the  Old  Testament  was  regarded 
as  out-and-out  atheism.  It  had  all  happened,  we  were  told, 
just  as  it  is  described. 

I  may  as  well  note  here  the  fact  that  for  many  years  in 
my  early  life  such  a  thing  as  only  reading  a  book  through 
once  rarely  happened,  when  I  could  obtain  it  long  enough. 
Even  the  translations  of  the  Xeo-Platonists,  with  Campa- 
nella,  Vanini,  or  the  Italian  naturalists,  were  read  and  re 
read,  while  the  principal  English  poets,  and  such  books  as  I 
owned,  were  perused  daily. 

And  here  in  this  great  infant  arithmetic  school  I  was  in 
due  time  set  down  to  study  Paley's  "Evidences  of  Chris 
tianity  "  and  Locke  on  the  Understanding — like  Carlyle's 
young  lion  invited  to  a  feast  of  chickweed.  Apropos  of  the 
first,  I  have  a  droll  reminiscence.  There  had  been  in  Phila 
delphia  two  years  before  a  sale  of  a  fine  library,  and  I  had 
been  heart-broken  because  my  means  had  not  permitted  me 
to  buy  the  works  of  Sir  Kenelm  Digby.  However,  I  found 
them  in  the  Princeton  College  Library.  The  first  thing  I 
came  to  in  Paley  was  his  famous  simile  of  the  watch — taken 
bodily  and  without  acknowledgment  from  Digby.  The  theft 
disgusted  me.  "  These  be  your.  Christian  champions ! "  I 
thought — 

"  Would  any  of  the  stock  of  infidels 
Had  been  my  evidence  ere  such  a  Christian ! " 

And,  moreover,  Paley  forgets  to  inform  us  what  conclu 
sion  the  finder  might  draw  if  he  had  picked  up  a  badly  made 
watch  which  did  not  keep  good  time — like  this  our  turnip  of 
a  world  at  times  ! 

As  we  were  obliged  to  attend  divine  service  strictly  on 
Sunday,  I  was  allowed  to  go  to  the  Episcopal  church  in  the 
village,  which  agreed  very  well  with  my  parents'  views.  I 
quite  fell  into  the  sentiment  of  the  sect,  and  so  went  to  Pro 
fessor  Dodd  to  ask  for  permission  from  the  Faculty  to  change 


88  MEMOIRS. 

my  religion.  When  he  asked  me  how  it  was  that  I  had  rene- 
gaded  into  Trinitarianism,  I  replied  that  it  was  due  to  reflec 
tion  on  the  perfectly  obvious  and  usual  road  of  the  Platonic 
hypostases  eked  out  with  Gnosticism.  I  had  found  in  the 
College  Library,  and  read  with  great  pleasure  almost  as  soon 
as  I  got  there,  Cudworth's  "  Intellectual  System  "  (I  raided  a 
copy  as  loot  from  a  house  in  Tennessee  in  after  years,  during 
the  war),  and  learned  from  it  that  "  it  was  a  religious  instinct 
of  man  to  begin  with  a  Trinity,  in  which  I  was  much  aided 
by  Schelling,  and  that  there  was  no  trace  of  a  Trinity  in  the 
Bible,  or  rather  the  contrary,  yet  that  it  ought  consistently  to 
have  been  there" — a  sentiment  which  provoked  from  Pro 
fessor  Dodd  a  long  whistle  like  that  of  Uncle  Toby  with 
Lilliburlero.  "  For,"  as  I  ingeniously  represented,  "  man  or 
God  consists  of  the  Monad  from  which  developed  spirit  or 
intellect  and  soul ;  for  toto  enim  in  mundo  lucet  Trias  ciijus 
Monas  est  princeps,  as  the  creed  of  the  Rosicrucians  begins 
(which  is  taken  from  the  Zoroastrian  oracles)" — here  there 
was  another  long  subdued  whistle — "and  it  is  set  forth  on 
the  face  of  every  Egyptian  temple  as  the  ball,  the  wings  of 
the  spirit  which  rusheth  into  all  worlds,  and  the  serpent, 
which  is  the  Logos."  Here  the  whistle  became  more  sympa 
thetic,  for  Egypt  was  the  professor's  great  point  in  his  lec 
tures  on  architecture.  And  having  thus  explained  the  true 
grounds  of  the  Trinity  to  the  most  learned  theologian  of  the 
Presbyterian  sect,  I  took  my  leave,  quite  unconscious  that  I 
had  said  anything  out  of  the  common,  for  all  I  meant  was 
to  give  my  reasons  for  going  back  to  the  Episcopal  Church. 
As  for  Professor  Dodd,  lie  had  given  me  up  from  the  very 
first  interview  to  follow  my  idols  as  I  pleased,  only  just 
throwing  in  argument  enough  to  keep  me  well  going.  lie 
would  have  been  the  last  man  on  earth  to  throw  down 
such  a  marvellous  fairy  castle,  goblin-built  and  elfin-ten 
anted,  from  whose  windows  rang  yEolian  harps,  and  which 
was  lit  by  night  with  undying  Rosicrucian  lamps,  to  erect 
on  its  ruin  a  plain  brick,  Old  School  Presbyterian  slated 


BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH.  89 

chapel.     I  was  far  more  amusing  as  I  was,  and  so  I  was 
let  alone. 

I  had  passed  my  examination  about  the  end  of  June,  and 
I  was  to  remain  in  Princeton  until  the  autumn,  reading  under 
a  tutor,  in  the  hope  of  being  able  to  join  the  Sophomore 
class  when  the  college  course  should  begin.  There  I  was 
utterly  alone,  and  rambled  by  myself  in  the  woods.  I  be 
lieved  myself  to  be  a  very  good  Christian  in  those  days ;  but 
I  was  really  as  unaffected  and  sincere  a  Poly-Pantheist  or 
Old  Nature  heathen  as  ever  lived  in  Etrusco-Roman  or  early 
German  days.  A  book  very  dear  to  my  heart  at  that  time 
was  the  Curiositez  Inouyes  of  Gaffarel  (Trollope  was  under 
the  impression  that  he  was  the  only  man  in  Europe  who  ever 
read  it),  in  which  there  is  an  exquisite  theory  that  the  stars 
of  heaven  in  their  courses  and  the  lines  of  winding  rivers  and 
bending  corn,  the  curves  of  shells  and  minerals,  rocks  and 
trees,  yes,  of  all  the  shapes  of  all  created  things,  form  the 
trace  and  letters  of  a  stupendous  writing  or  characters  spread 
all  over  the  universe,  which  writing  becomes  little  by  little 
legible  to  the  one  who  by  communion  with  Nature  and  ear 
nest  faith  seeks  to  penetrate  the  secret.  I  had  found  in  the 
lonely  woods  a  small  pond  by  a  high  rock,  where  I  often  sat 
in  order  to  attain  this  blessed  illumination,  and  if  I  did  not 
get  quite  so  far  as  I  hoped,  I  did  in  reality  attain  to  a  deep 
unconscious  familiarity  with  birds  and  leafy  shades,  still 
waters,  and  high  rising  trees ;  in  short,  with  all  the  sweet 
solemnity  of  sylvan  nature,  which  has  ever  since  influenced 
all  my  life.  I  mean  this  not  in  the  second-hand  way  in 
which  it  is  so  generally  understood,  but  as  a  real  existence  in 
itself,  so  earnestly  felt  that  I  was  but  little  short  of  talking 
Avith  elfin  beings  or  seeing  fairies  flitting  over  flowers.  Those 
who  explain  everything  by  "  imagination  "  do  not  in  the  least 
understand  how  actual  the  life  in  Nature  may  become  to  us. 
Reflect  for  a  minute,  thou  whose  whole  soul  is  in  gossip  and 
petty  chronicles  of  fashion,  and  "  sassiety,"  that  in  that  life 
thou  wert  a  million  years  ago,  and  in  it  thou  wilt  be  a  million 


90  MEMOIRS. 

years  hence,  ever  going  on  in  all  forms,  often  enough  in 
rivers,  rock,  and  trees,  and  yet  canst  not  realise  with  a  sense 
of  awe  that  there  are  in  these  forms,  passing  to  others — ever, 
ever  on — myriads  of  men  and  women,  or  at  least  their  life — 
how  we  know  not,  as  what  we  know  not — only  this,  that  the 
"Will  or  creative  force  of  the  Creator  or  Creating  is  in  it  all. 
This  was  the  serious  yet  unconscious  inspiration  of  my  young 
life  in  those  days,  in  even  more  elaborate  or  artistic  form, 
which  all  went  very  well  hand  in  hand  with  the  Euclid  and 
Homer  or  Demosthenes  and  Livy  with  which  my  tutor  Mr. 
Scheuk  (pronounce  Skunk)  was  coaching  me. 

My  reading  may  seem  to  the  reader  to  have  been  more 
limited  than  it  was,  because  I  have  not  mentioned  the  his 
torians,  essayists,  or  belletrists  whose  works  are  read  more  or 
less  by  "  almost  everybody."  It  is  hardly  worth  while  to  say, 
what  must  be  of  course  surmised,  that  Sterne,  Addison,  Gold 
smith,  Johnson,  Swift,  and  Macaulay — in  fine,  the  leading 
English  classics — were  really  well  read  by  me,  my  ambition 
being  not  to  be  ignorant  of  anything  which  a  literary  man 
should  know.  Macaulay  was  then  new,  and  I  devoured  not 
only  his  works,  but  a  vast  amount  by  him  suggested.  I 
realised  at  an  early  age  that  there  was  a  certain  cycle  of 
knowledge  common  to  all  really  cultivated  minds,  and  this  I 
was  determined  to  master.  I  had,  however,  little  indeed  of 
the  vanity  of  erudition,  having  been  deeply  convinced  and 
constantly  depressed  or  shamed  by  the  reflection  that  it  was 
all  worse  than  useless,  and  injurious  to  making  my  way  in 
life.  When  I  hoard  that  Professor  Dodd  had  said  that  at 
seventeen  there  were  not  ten  men  in  America  who  had  read 
so  much,  while  Professor  Joseph  Henry  often  used  words  to 
this  effect,  and  stern  James  Alexander  in  his  lectures  would 
make  deeply  learned  allusions  intended  for  me  alone — as,  for 
instance,  to  Kant's  "./Esthetik  " — I  was  anything  but  elated 
or  vain  in  consequence.  I  had  read  in  Sartor  Resartns,  "  If 
a  man  reads,  shall  he  not  be  learned  ?  "  and  I  knew  too  well 
that  reading  was  with  me  an  unprofitable,  perhaps  pitiable, 


BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH.  91 

incurable  mania-amusement,  which  might  ruin  me  for  life, 
and  which,  as  it  was,  was  a  daily  source  of  apprehension  be 
tween  me  and  my  good  true  friends,  who  feared  wisely  for 
my  future. 

I  absolutely  made  James  Alexander  smile  for  once  in  his 
life — 'twas  sunshine  on  the  grim  Tarpeian  rock.  I  had 
bought  me  a  nice  English  large  type  Juvenal,  and  written  on 
the  outside  in  quaint  Elizabethan  character  form — I  forget 
now  the  name  of  the  author — the  following : — 

"  Ay,  Juvenall,  thy  jerking  hande  is  good, 
Xot  gently  laying  on,  but  bringing  bloude. 
Oh,  suffer  me  amonge  so  manye  men 
To  treade  aright  the  traces  of  thy  penne, 
And  light  my  lamp  at  thy  eternal  flame ! " 

We  students  in  the  Latin  class  had  left  our  books  on  a 
table,  when  I  saw  grim  and  dour  James  Alexander  pick  up 
my  copy,  read  the  inscription,  when  looking  up  at  me  he 
smiled ;  it  was  a  kind  of  poetry  which  pleased  him. 

I  remember,  too,  how  one  day,  when  in  Professor  Dodd's 
class  of  mathematics,  I,  instead  of  attending  to  the  lecture, 
read  surreptitiously  Cardanus  de  Subtilitate  in  an  old  vellum 
binding,  and  carelessly  laid  it  on  the  table  afterwards,  where 
Professor  Dodd  found  it,  and  directed  at  me  one  of  his  half- 
laughing  Mephistophelian  glances.  Eeading  of  novels  in 
lectures  was  not  unknown ;  but  for  Dodd  to  find  anything  so 
caviare-like  as  Cardanus  among  our  books  was  unusual. 
George  Boker  remarked  once,  that  while  Professor  Dodd 
was  a  Greek,  Professor  James  Alexander  was  an  old  Eoman, 
which  was  indeed  a  good  summary  of  the  two. 

I  have  and  always  had  a  bad  memory,  but  I  continued  to 
retain  what  I  read  by  repetition  or  reviewing  and  by  colloca 
tion,  which  is  a  marvellous  aid  in  retaining  images.  For,  in 
the  first  place,  I  read  entirely  by  GROUPS;  and  if  I,  for  in 
stance,  attacked  Blair's  "  Ehetoric,"  Longinus  and  Burke 
promptly  followed  ;  and  if  I  perused  "  Rambles  in  the  Foot 
steps  of  Don  Quixote,"  I  at  once,  on  principle,  followed  it  up 


92  MEMOIRS. 

with  "  Spain  in  1830,"  and  a  careful  study  of  Ford's  Guide- 
Book  for  Spain,  and  perhaps  a  score  of  similar  books,  till  I 
had  got  Spain  well  into  me.  And  as  I  have  found  by  years 
of  observation  and  much  research,  having  written  a  book  on 
Education  partly  based  on  this  principle,  ten  books  on  any 
subject  read  together,  profit  more  than  a  hundred  at  inter 
vals.  And  I  may  here  add,  that  if  this  record  of  what  I 
read  be  dull,  it  is  still  that  of  my  real  youthful  life,  giving 
the  clue  to  my  mind  as  it  was  formed.  Books  in  those  days 
were  the  only  events  of  my  life. 

Long  before  I  went  to  college  I  had  an  attack  of  Irish 
antiquities,  which  I  relieved  by  reading  O'Brien,  Vallancey, 
the  more  sensible  Petrie,  and  O'Somebody's  Irish  grammar, 
aided  by  old  Annie  Mooney,  who  always  remained  by  us.  In 
after  years  I  discovered  an  Ogham  inscription  and  the  famed 
Ogham  tongue,  or  Shelta,  "  the  lost  language  of  the  bards," 
according  to  Kuno  Meyer  and  John  Sampson. 

During  my  first  half-year  a  college  magazine  was  pub 
lished,  and  I,  a  Freshman,  was  requested  to  contribute  to  the 
first  number.  I  sent  in  an  article  on  the  history  of  English 
poetry.  Before  I  wrote  it,  the  great  man  among  the  senior 
students  asked  leave  to  be  allowed  to  write  it  with  me.  I  did 
not  quite  like  the  idea,  but  reflecting  that  the  association 
would  give  me  a  certain  prestige,  I  accepted  his  aid.  So  it 
appeared  ;  but  it  was  regarded  as  mine.  Professor  Dodd  said 
something  to  me  about  the  inexpediency  of  so  young  a  per 
son  appearing  in  print.  I  could  have  told  him  that  I  had 
already  published  several  poems,  &c.,  in  Philadelphia!!  news 
papers,  but  reflecting  that  it  was  not  kind  to  have  the  better 
of  him,  I  said  nothing.  From  that  time  I  published  some 
thing  in  every  number.  My  second  article  was  an  essay  on 
Spinoza,  and  I  still  think  it  was  rather  good  for  a  boy  of 
sixteen. 

There  was  the  College  and  also  a  Society  library,  out  of 
which  I  picked  a  great  deal  of  good  reading.  One  day  I 
asked  Professor  John  MacLean,  the  college  librarian,  for  the 


BOYHOOD  AND   YOUTH.  93 

works  of  Condorcet.  His  reply  was,  "  Vile  book !  vile  book ! 
can't  have  it."  However,  I  found  in  the  Society  library  Ur- 
quhart's  translation  of  "  Rabelais,"  which  I  read,  I  daresay,  as 
often  as  any  mortal  ever  did.  And  here  I  have  a  word  to  say 
to  the  wretched  idiots  who  regard  "  the  book  called  Rabelais  " 
as  "  immoral "  and  unfit  for  youth.  Many  times  did  I  try  to 
induce  my  young  friends  to  read  "  Rabelais,"  and  some  actu 
ally  mastered  the  story  of  the  goose  as  a  torche-cul,  and  per 
haps  two  or  three  chapters  more ;  but  as  for  reading  through 
or  enjoying  it,  "  that  was  not  in  their  minds."  All  com 
plained,  or  at  least  showed,  that  they  "did  not  understand 
it."  It  was  to  them  an  aggravating  farrago  of  filth  and 
oddity,  under  which  they  suspected  some  formal  allegory  or 
meaning  which  had  perished,  or  was  impenetrable.  Learn 
this,  ye  prigs  of  morality,  that  no  work  of  genius  ever  yet  de 
moralised  a  dolt  or  ignoramus.  Even  the  Old  Testament, 
with  all  its  stores  of  the  "  shocking,"  really  does  very  little 
harm.  It  requires  mind  for  mind  in  reading,  and  vice  be 
comes  unattractive  even  to  the  vicious  when  they  cannot  under 
stand  it.  I  did  understand  Rabelais,  and  the  Moyen  de  Par- 
vcnir,  and  the  Cymbalum  Mundi,  and  Boccaccio  (I  owned 
these  books),  and  laughed  over  them,  yet  was  withal  as  pure- 
minded  a  youth  as  could  well  be  imagined  without  being  a 
simpleton.  For,  with  all  such"  reading,  I  best  loved  such  a 
book  as  Bromley's  "  Sabbath  of  Rest,"  or  sweet,  strange 
works  of  ancient  Mysticism,  which  bore  the  soul  away  to  the 
stars  or  into  Nature.  Such  a  combination  is  perfectly  pos 
sible  when  there  is  no  stain  of  dishonesty  or  vulgarity  in  the 
character,  and  I  had  escaped  such  influences  easily  enough. 

A  droll  event  took  place  in  the  spring.  It  had  been  usual 
once  a  year — I  forgot  on  what  occasion — to  give  to  all  the 
classes  a  holiday.  This  year  it  was  abolished,  and  the  Sopho 
more,  junior,  and  senior  classes  quietly  acquiesced.  But  we, 
the  Freshmen,  albeit  we  had  never  been  there  before,  rebelled 
at  such  infringement  of  "  our  rights,"  and  absented  ourselves 
from  recitation.  I  confess  that  I  was  a  leader  in  the  move- 


94  MEMOIRS. 

merit,  because  I  sincerely  believed  it  to  be  a  sin  to  "  remove 
old  landmarks,"  and  that  the  students  required  more  rest  and 
holidays  than  were  allowed  them ;  in  which  I  was  absolutely 
in  the  right,  for  our  whole  life,  except  Saturday  afternoons, 
was  "  one  demnition  grind." 

The  feeling  which  was  excited  by  this  "  Freshman's  rebel 
lion"  was  one  of  utter  amazement,  or  awful  astonishment 
tempered  with  laughter,  not  unmingled  with  respect.  It  was 
the  terrier  flying  at  the  lion,  when  the  great  mastiff,  and 
bloodhound,  and  Danish  dog  had  quietly  slunk  aside.  There 
were  in  the  class  beside  myself  several  youths  of  marked 
character,  and  collectively  we  had  already  made  an  impres 
sion,  to  which  my  intimacy  with  George  Boker,  and  Professor 
Dodd,  and  the  very  elite  of  the  seniors,  added  not  a  little 
force.  We  were  mysterious.  Hitherto  a  Freshman  had  been 
the  greenest  of  the  green,  a  creature  created  for  ridicule,  a 
sort  of  "  leathery  fox  "  or  mere  tyro  (ty — not  a  ty-pographical 
error — pace  my  kind  and  courteous  reviewer  in  the  Satur 
day] — and  here  were  Freshmen  of  a  new  kind  rising  in  dig 
nity  above  all  others. 

Which  reminds  me  of  a  merry  tale.  It  was  usual  for 
Freshmen  to  learn  to  smoke  for  the  first  time  after  coming 
to  college,  and  for  more  advanced  students  to  go  to  their 
rooms,  or  find  them  in  others,  and  smoke  them  sick  or  into 
retreating.  I,  however,  found  a  source  of  joy  in  this,  that  I 
could  now  sit  almost  from  morning  till  night,  and  very  often 
on  to  three  in  the  morning,  smoking  all  the  time,  being 
deeply  learned  in  Varinas,  Kanaster,  and  the  like ;  for  I 
smoked  nothing  but  real  Holland  tobacco,  while  I  could  buy 
it.  A  party  of  Sophomores  informed  George  Boker  that 
they  intended  to  smoke  me  out.  "  Smoke  him  out ! "  quoth 
George;  "  why,  he'd  smoke  the  whole  of  you  dumb  and  blind." 
However,  it  came  to  pass  that  one  evening  several  of  them 
tried  it  on ;  and  verily  they  might  as  well  have  tried  it  on  to 
Kiklas  Henkerwyssel,  who,  as  the  legend  goes,  sold  his  soul 
to  the  devil  for  the  ability  to  smoke  all  the  time,  to  whom  my 


BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH.  95 

father  had  once  compared  me.  So  the  cigars  and  tobacco 
were  burned,  and  I  liked  it  extremely.  Denser  grew  the 
smoke,  and  the  windows  were  closed,  to  which  I  cheerfully 
assented,  for  I  liked  to  have  it  thick ;  and  still  more  smoke 
and  more,  and  the  young  gentlemen  who  had  come  to 
smother  me  grew  pale,  even  as  the  Porcupines  grew  pale 
when  they  tried  to  burn  out  the  great  Indian  sorcerer,  who 
burned  them  !  But  I,  who  was  beginning  to  enjoy  myself 
amazingly  in  such  congenial  society,  only  filled  Boker's  great 
meerschaum  with  Latakia,  and  puffed  away.  One  by  one  the 
visitors  also  "  puffed  away,"  i.  e.,  vanished  through  the  door 
into  the  night. 

"  Shall  I  open  the  window  ?  "  asked  George. 

"  Not  on  my  account,"  I  replied.  "  I  rather  enjoy  it  as 
it  is." 

"  I  begin  to  believe,"  replied  my  friend,  "  that  you  would 
like  it  in  Dante's  hell  of  clouds.  Do  you  know  what  those 
men  came  here  for?  It  was  to  smoke  you  out.  And  you 
smoked  them  out,  and  never  knew  it."  Which  was  perfectly 
true.  As  for  smoking,  my  only  trouble  was  to  be  able  to  buy 
cigars  and  tobacco.  These  were  incredibly  cheap  in  those 
days,  and  I  always  dressed  very  respectably,  but  my  smoking 
always  cost  me  more  than  my  clothing. 

When  we  Freshmen  had  rebelled,  we  were  punished  by 
being  rusticated  or  sent  into  the  country  to  board.  I  went 
to  Professor  Dodd  to  receive  my  sentence,  and  in  a  grave 
voice,  in  which  was  a  faint  ring  as  of  irony,  and  with  the 
lurking  devil  which  always  played  in  his  great  marvellous 
mysterious  black  eyes,  he  said,  "  If  you  were  any  other  stu 
dent,  I  would  not  send  you  to  the  city,  and  so  reward  your 
rebellion  with  a  holiday.  But  as  I  know  perfectly  well  that 
you  will  go  into  the  Philadelphia  Library,  and  never  stop 
reading  till  it  is  time  to  return,  I  will  send  you  there." 

My  parents  were  then  absent  with  my  younger  sisters  in 
New  England,  but  I  had  unlimited  credit  at  Congress  Hall 
Hotel,  which  was  kept  by  a  Mr.  John  Sturdevant,  and  where 


96  MEMOIRS. 

I  was  greatly  respected  as  the  son  of  the  owner  of  the  prop 
erty.  So  I  went  there,  and  fared  well,  and,  as  Professor 
Dodd  prophesied,  read  all  the  time.  One  night  I  went  into 
an  auction  of  delightful  old  books.  My  money  had  run  low ; 
there  only  remained  to  me  one  dollar  and  a  half. 

Now,  of  all  books  on  earth,  what  I  most  yearned  for  in 
those  days  were  the  works  of  Jacob  Behmen.  And  the  auc 
tioneer  put  up  a  copy  containing  "  The  Aurora  or  Morning 
Kednesse,"  English  version  (circa  1636),  and  I  bid.  One 
dollar — one  dollar  ten  cents — twenty — twenty-five  ;  my  heart 
palpitated,  and  I  half  fainted  for  fear  lest  I  should  be  out 
bid,  when  at  the  very  last  I  got  it  with  my  last  penny. 

The  black  eyes  of  Professor  Dodd  twinkled  more  elfishly 
than  ever  when  I  exhibited  to  him  my  glorious  treasure.  He 
evidently  thought  that  my  exile  had  been  to  me  anything  but 
a  punishment,  and  he  was  right.  For  a  copy  of  Anthropo- 
sophos  Theomayicus  or  the  works  of  Eobert  Fludd  I  would 
have  got  up  another  rebellion. 

It  was  quite  against  the  college  regulations  for  students 
to  live  in  the  town,  but  as  I  never  touched  a  card,  was  totally 
abstemious  and  "  moral,"  and  moreover  in  rather  delicate 
health,  I  was  passed  over  as  an  odd  exception.  Once  or  twice 
it  was  proposed  to  bring  me  in,  but  Professor  Dodd  interfered 
and  saved  me.  While  in  Princeton  for  more  than  four  years, 
I  never  once  touched  a  drop  of  anything  stronger  than  coffee, 
which  was  a  great  pity !  Exercise  was  not  in  those  days  en 
couraged  in  any  way  whatever — in  fact,  playing  billiards  and 
ten-pins  was  liable  to  be  punished  by  expulsion  ;  there  was  no 
gymnasium,  no  boating,  and  all  physical  games  and  manly  ex 
ercises  were  sternly  discouraged  as  leading  to  sin.  Now,  if  I 
had  drunk  a  pint  of  bitter  ale  every  day,  and  played  cricket 
or  "  gymnased,"  or  rowed  for  two  hours,  it  would  have  saved 
me  much  suffering,  and  to  a  great  degree  have  relieved  me 
from  reading,  romancing,  reflecting,  and  smoking,  all  of 
which  I  carried  to  great  excess,  having  an  inborn  impulse  to 
be  always  doing  something.  That  I  did  not  grapple  with 


BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH.  97 

life  as  a  real  thing,  or  with  prosaic  college  studies  or  society, 
was,  I  can  now  see,  a  disease,  for  which,  as  my  peculiar  tastes 
had  come  upon  me  from  nervous  and  Unitarian  and  Alcott- 
ian  evil  influences,  I  was  not  altogether  responsible.  I  was 
a  precocious  boy,  and  I  had  fully  developed  extraordinary 
influences,  which,  like  the  seed  of  Scripture,  had  in  my  case 
fallen  on  more  than  fertile  ground ;  it  was  like  the  soil  of  the 
Margariten  Island,  by  Budapest,  which  is  so  permeated  by 
hot  springs  in  a  rich  soil  that  everything  comes  to  maturity 
there  in  one-third  of  the  time  which  it  does  elsewhere.  I 
was  the  last  child  on  earth  who  should  ever  have  fallen  into 
Alcott's  hands,  or  listened  to  Dr.  Channing  or  Furness,  or 
have  been  interested  in  anything  "  ideal " ;  but  fate  willed 
that  I  should  drink  the  elfin  goblet  to  the  dregs. 

George  H.  Boker  had  a  great  influence  on  me.  We  were 
in  a  way  connected,  for  my  uncle  Amos  had  married  his  aunt, 
and  my  cousin,  Benjamin  Godfrey,  his  cousin.  He  was  ex 
actly  six  feet  high,  with  the  form  of  an  Apollo,  and  a  head 
which  was  the  very  counterpart  of  the  bust  of  Byron.  A 
few  years  later  N.  P.  "Willis  described  him  in  the  Home 
Journal  as  the  handsomest  man  in  America.  He  had  been 
from  boyhood  as  precociously  a  man  of  the  world  as  I  was 
the  opposite.  He  was  par  eminence  the  poet  of  our  college, 
and  in  a  quiet,  gentlemanly  way  its  "  swell."  I  passed  a 
great  deal  of  my  time  in  his  rooms  reading  Wordsworth, 
Shelley,  and  Byron,  the  last  named  being  his  ideal.  He  ridi 
culed  the  Lakers,  whom  I  loved ;  and  when  Southey's  last 
poem,  "  On  Gooseberry  Pie,"  appeared,  he  declared  that  the 
poor  old  man  was  in  his  dotage,  to  which  I  assented  with 
sorrow  in  my  heart.  Though  only  one  year  older  than  I, 
yet,  as  a  Junior,  and  from  his  superior  knowledge  of  life,  I 
regarded  him  as  being  about  thirty.  He  was  quite  familiar, 
in  a  refined  and  gentlemanly  way,  with  all  the  dissipation  of 
Philadelphia  and  New  York ;  nor  was  the  small  circle  of  his 
friends,  with  whom  I  habitually  associated,  much  behind  him 
in  this  respect.  Even  during  this  Junior  year  he  was  offered 


98  MEMOIRS. 

the  post  of  secretary  to  our  Ambassador  at  Vienna.  From 
him  and  the  others  I  acquired  a  second-hand  knowledge  of 
life,  which  was  sufficient  to  keep  me  from  being  regarded  as  a 
duffer  or  utterly  "  green,"  though  in  all  such  "life  "  I  was  prac 
tically  as  innocent  as  a  young  nun.  Now,  whatever  I  heard, 
as  well  as  read,  I  always  turned  over  and  over  in  my  mind, 
thoroughly  digesting  it  to  a  most  exceptional  degree.  So  that 
I  was  somewhat  like  the  young  lady  of  whom  I  heard  in  Vienna 
in  after  years.  She  was  brought  up  in  the  utmost  moral  and 
strict  seclusion,  but  she  found  in  her  room  an  aperture  through 
which  she  could  witness  all  that  took  place  in  the  neighbour 
ing  room  of  amaison  de  passe  ;  but  being  a  great  philosopher, 
she  in  time  regarded  it  all  as  the  "  butterfly  passing  show  "  of 
a  theatre,  the  mere  idle  play  of  foolish  mortal  passions. 

Even  before  I  began  my  Freshman  year  there  came  into 
my  life  a  slight  but  new  and  valuable  influence.  Professor 
Dodd,  when  I  arrived,  had  just  begun  his  course  of  lectures 
on  architecture.  To  my  great  astonishment,  but  not  at  all 
to  that  of  George  Boker,  I  was  invited  to  attend  the  course, 
Boker  remarking  dryly  that  he  had  no  doubt  that  Dodd 
thanked  God  for  having  at  last  got  an  auditor  who  would 
appreciate  him.  Which  I  certainly  did.  I  in  after  years 
listened  to  the  great  Thiersch,  who  trained  Heine  to  art,  and 
of  whom  I  was  a  special  protege,  and  many  great  teachers, 
but  I  never  listened  to  any  one  like  Albert  Dodd.  It  was 
not  with  him  the  mere  description  of  styles  and  dates ;  it 
was  a  deep  and  truly  esthetic  feeling  that  every  phase  of 
architecture  mirrors  and  reciprocally  forms  its  age,  and 
breathes  its  life  and  poetry  and  religion,  which  characterised 
all  that  he  said.  It  was  in  nothing  like  the  subjective  rhap 
sodies  of  Kuskin,  which  bloomed  out  eight  years  later,  but 
rather  in  the  spirit  of  Vischer  and  Taine,  which  J.  A.  Sy- 
monds  has  so  beautifully  and  clearly  set  forth  in  his  Essays  * 

*  May  I  be  pardoned  for  here  mentioning  that  Mr.  Symonds,  not 
long  before  his  death,  wrote  a  letter  to  one  of  our  mutual  friends,  in 


BOYHOOD  AND   YOUTH.  99 

— that  is,  the  spirit  of  historical  development.  Here  my 
German  philosophy  enabled  me  to  grasp  a  subtle  and  delicate 
spirit  of  beauty,  which  passed,  I  fear,  over  the  heads  of  the 
rest  of  the  youthful  audience.  His  ideas  of  the  correspond 
ence  of  Egyptian  architecture  to  the  stupendous  massiveness 
of  Pantheism  and  the  appalling  grandeur  of  its  ideas,  were 
clear  enough  to  me,  who  had  copied  Hermes  Trismegistus 
and  read  with  deepest  feeling  the  Orphic  and  Chaldean  ora 
cles.  The  ideas  had  not  only  been  long  familiar  to  me,  but 
formed  my  very  life  and  the  subject  of  the  most  passionate 
study.  To  hear  them  clearly  expressed  with  rare  beauty,  in 
the  deep,  strange  voice  of  the  professor,  was  joy  beyond  be 
lief.  And  as  it  would  not  be  in  human  nature  for  a  lecturer 
not  to  note  an  admiring  auditor,  it  happened  often  enough 
that  something  was  often  introduced  for  my  special  appreci 
ation. 

For  I  may  here  note — and  it  was  a  very  natural  thing — 
that  just  as  Gypsy  musicians  always  select  in  the  audience 
some  one  who  seems  to  be  most  appreciative,  at  whom  they 
play  (they  call  it  de  o  kdn},  so  Professors  Dodd  and  James 
Alexander  afterwards,  in  their  aesthetic,  or  more  erudite  dis 
quisitions,  rarely  failed  to  fiddle  at  me — Dodd  looking  right 
in  my  eyes,  and  Alexander  at  the  ceiling,  ending,  however, 
with  a  very  brief  glance,  as  if  for  conscience'  sake.  I  feel 
proud  of  this,  and  it  affects  me  more  now  than  it  did  then, 
when  it  produced  no  effect  of  vanity,  and  seemed  to  me  to 
be  perfectly  natural. 

I  heard  certain  mutterings  and  hoots  among  the  students 
as  I  went  out  of  the  lecture-room,  but  did  not  know  what 
it  meant.  George  Boker  informed  me  afterwards  that  there 
had  been  great  indignation  expressed  that  "  a  green  ignorant 
Freshman  "  had  dared  to  intrude,  as  I  had  done,  among  his 
intellectual  superiors  and  betters,  but  that  he  had  at  once  ex- 

which  he  spoke  "  most  enthusiastically "  of  my  work  on  "  Etruscan 
Roman  Traditions  in  Popular  Tradition."  "  For  that  alone  would  I 
have  writ  the  book." 


100  MEMOIRS. 

plained  that  I  was  a  great  friend  of  Professor  Dodd,  and  a 
kind  of  marvellous  rara  avis,  not  to  be  classed  with  common 
little  Freshmen  ;  so  that  in  future  I  was  allowed  to  go  my 
way  in  peace. 

A  man  of  culture  who  had  known  Coleridge  well,  declared 
that  as  a  conversationalist  on  varied  topics  Professor  Albert 
Dodd  was  his  superior.  When  in  the  pulpit,  or  in  the  length 
ened  "  addresses  "  of  lecturing,  there  was  a  marvellous  fas 
cination  in  his  voice — an  Italian  witch,  or  red  Indian,  or  a 
gypsy  would  have  at  once  recognised  in  him  a  sorcerer.  Yet 
his  manner  was  subdued,  his  voice  monotonous,  never  loud, 
a  running  stream  without  babbling  stones  or  rapids  ;  but 
when  it  came  to  a  climax  cataract  he  cleared  it  with  grand 
eur,  leaving  a  stupendous  impression.  In  the  ordinary  mo 
notony  of  that  deep  voice  there  was  soon  felt  an  indescribable 
charm.  In  saying  this  I  only  repeat  what  I  have  heard  in 
more  or  less  different  phrase  from  others.  There  was  always 
in  his  eyes  (and  in  this  as  in  other  points  he  resembled  Emer 
son)  a  strange  indefinable  suspicion  of  a  smile,  though  he, 
like  the  Sage  of  Concord,  rarely  laughed.  Owing  to  these 
black  eyes,  and  his  sallow  complexion,  his  sobriquet  among 
the  students  was  "  the  royal  Bengal  tiger."  He  was  not  un 
like  Emerson  as  a  lecturer.  I  heard  the  latter  deliver  his 
great  course  of  lectures  in  London  in  1848 — including  the 
famous  one  on  Napoleon — but  he  had  not  to  the  same  per 
fection  the  music  of  the  voice,  nor  the  indefinable  mysterious 
charm  which  characterised  the  style  of  Professor  Dodd,  who 
played  with  emotion  as  if  while  feeling  he  was  ever  superior 
to  it.  He  was  a  great  actor,  who  had  gone  far  beyond  acting 
or  art. 

Owing,  I  suppose,  to  business  losses,  my  father  and  family 
lived  for  two  years  either  at  Congress  Hall  Hotel  or  en  pen 
sion.  I  spent  my  first  vacation  at  the  former  place.  There 
lived  in  the  house  a  Colonel  John  Du  Solle,  the  editor  of  a 
newspaper.  He  was  a  good-natured,  rather  dissipated  man, 
who  kept  horses  and  had  a  fancy  for  me,  and  took  me  out 


BOYHOOD  AND   YOUTH.    %  101 

"  on  drives,"  and  once  introduced  me  in  the  street  to  a  great 
actress,  Susan  Cushman,*  and  very  often  to  theatres  and  cof 
fee-houses  and  reporters,  and  printed  several  of  my  lucubra 
tions.  Du  Solle  was  in  after  years  secretary  to  P.  T.  Barnum, 
whom  I  also  knew  well.  He  was  kind  to  me,  and  I  owe  him 
this  friendly  mention.  Some  people  thought  him  a  rather 
dangerous  companion  for  youth,  but  I  was  never  taken  by 
him  into  bad  company  or  places,  nor  did  I  ever  hear  from  him 
a  word  of  which  my  parents  would  have  disapproved.  But  I 
really  believe  that  I  could  at  that  time,  or  any  other,  have 
kept  company  with  the  devil  and  not  been  much  harmed  :  it 
was  not  in  me.  Edgar  A.  Poe  was  often  in  Du  Solle's  office 
and  at  Congress  Hall. 

In  the  summer  we  all  went  to  Stonington,  Connecticut, 
where  we  lived  at  a  hotel  called  the  Wadawanuc  House. 
There  I  went  out  sailing — once  on  a  clam-bake  excursion  in 
a  yacht  owned  by  Captain  Nat.  Palmer,  who  had  discovered 
Palmer's  Land — and  sailed  far  and  wide.  That  summer  I 
also  saw  on  his  own  deck  the  original  old  Vanderbilt  himself, 
who  was  then  the  captain  of  a  Sound  steamboat ;  and  I 
bathed  every  day  in  salt-water,  and  fished  from  the  wharf, 
and  smoked  a  great  deal,  and  read  French  books  ;  and  after 
a  while  we  went  into  Massachusetts  and  visited  the  dear  old 
villages  and  Boston,  and  so  on,  till  I  had  to  return  to  Prince 
ton.  Soon  after  my  father  took  another  house  in  "Walnut 
Street,  the  next  door  above  the  one  where  we  had  lived. 
This  one  was  rather  better,  for  though  it  had  less  garden,  it 
had  larger  back-buildings. 

Bon  an,  mal  an,  the  time  passed  away  at  Princeton  for 
four  years.  I  was  often  very  ill.  In  the  last  year  the  phy- 

*  "  Susan  Cushman  was  extremely  pretty,  but  was  not  particularly 
gifted;  in  personal  appearance  she  was  altogether  unlike  Charlotte; 
.  .  .  the  latter  was  a  large,  tall  woman  "  ("  Gossip  of  the  Century," 
vol.  ii.).  John  Du  Solle  took  me  for  the  first  time  to  see  Charlotte 
Cushman,  and  then  asked  me  what  I  thought  she  looked  like.  And  I 
replied,  "  A  bull  in  black  silk." 


„  MEMOIRS. 

sician  who  tested  my  lungs  declared  they  were  iinsound  in 
two  places ;  and  about  this  time  I  was  believed  to  have  con 
tracted  an  incurable  stoop  in  the  shoulders.  One  day  I  re 
solved  that  from  that  minute  I  would  always  hold  myself 
straight  upright ;  and  I  did  so,  and  in  the  course  of  time  be 
came  as  straight  as  an  arrow,  and  have  continued  so,  I  be 
lieve,  ever  since. 

I  discovered  vast  treasures  of  strange  reading  in  the 
library  of  the  Princeton  Theological  College.  There  was  in 
one  corner  in  a  waste-room  at  least  two  cart-loads  of  old 
books  in  a  cobwebbed  dusty  pile.  Out  of  that  pile  I  raked 
the  thirteenth  known  copy  of  Blind  Harry's  famed  poem,  a 
black-letter  Euphues  Lely,  an  Erra  Pater  (a  very  weak- 
minded  friend  actually  shamed  me  out  of  making  a  copy  of 
this  great  curiosity,  telling  me  it  was  silly  and  childish  of 
me  to  be  so  pleased  with  old  trash),  and  many  more  mar 
vels,  which  were  so  little  esteemed  in  Princeton,  that  one  of 
the  professors,  seeing  me  daft  with  delight  over  my  finds, 
told  me  I  was  quite  welcome  to  keep  them  all ;  but  I,  who 
better  knew  their  great  value,  would  not  avail  myself  of  the 
offer,  reflecting  that  a  time  would  come  when  these  treas 
ures  would  be  properly  valued.  God  knows  it  was  a  terrible 
temptation  to  me,  and  such  as  I  hope  I  may  never  have 
again — ne  inducas  nos  in  tcmptationem  ! 

The  time  for  my  graduation  was  at  hand.  I  had  profited 
very  much  in  the  last  year  by  the  teaching  and  friendly  coun 
sel  of  Professor  Joseph  Henry,  whose  lectures  on  philosophy 
I  diligently  attended ;  also  those  on  geology,  chemistry  and 
botany  by  Professor  Torrey,  and  by  the  company  of  Professor 
Topping.  I  stood  very  high  in  Latin,  and  perhaps  first  in 
English  branches.  Yet,  because  I  had  fallen  utterly  short  in 
mathematics,  I  was  rated  the  lowest  but  one  in  the  class — or, 
honestly  speaking,  the  very  last,  for  the  one  below  me  was  an 
utterly  reckless  youth,  who  could  hardly  be  said  to  have  stud 
ied  or  graduated  at  all.  There  were  two  honours  usually 
awarded  for  proficiency  in  study.  One  was  the  First  Honour, 


BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH.  103 

and  he  who  received  it  delivered  the  Valedictory  Oration ; 
the  second  was  the  Poem ;  and  by  an  excess  of  kindness  and 
justice  for  which  I  can  never  feel  too  grateful,  and  which 
was  really  an  extraordinary  stretch  of  their  power  under  the 
circumstances,  the  Poem  was  awarded  to  me ! 

I  was  overwhelmed  at  the  honour,  but  bitterly  mortified 
and  cut  to  my  heart  to  think  how  little  I  had  deserved  it ; 
for  I  had  never  done  a  thing  save  read  and  study  that  which 
pleased  me  and  was  easy.  I  wrote  the  poem  (and  I  still 
think  it  was  a  good  one,  for  I  put  all  my  soul  into  it),  and 
sent  it  in  to  the  Faculty,  with  a  letter  stating  that  I  was 
deeply  grateful  for  their  extreme  kindness,  but  that,  feeling 
I  had  not  deserved  it,  I  must  decline  the  honour.  But  I  sent 
them  my  MS.  as  a  proof  that  I  did  not  do  so  because  I  felt 
myself  incapable,  and  because  I  wished  to  give  them  some 
evidence  that  they  had  not  erred  in  regarding  me  as  a  poet. 

Very  foolish  and  boyish,  the  reader  may  say,  and  yet  I 
never  regretted  it.  The  Faculty  were  not  to  blame  for  the 
system  pursued,  and  they  did  their  utmost  in  every  way  for 
four  years  to  make  it  easy  and  happy  for  one  of  the  laziest 
and  most  objectionable  students  whom  they  had  ever  had.  I 
have  never  been  really  able  to  decide  whether  I  was  right  or 
wrong.  At  liberal  Cambridge,  Massachusetts,  neither  I  nor 
the  professors  would  ever  have  discovered  a  flaw  in  my  indus 
try.  At  the  closely  cramped,  orthodox,  hide-bound,  mathe 
matical  Princeton,  every  weakness  in  me  seemed  to  be  de 
veloped.  Thirty  years  later  I  read  in  the  Nassau  Monthly, 
which  I  had  once  edited,  that  if  Boker  and  I  and  a  few 
others  had  become  known  in  literature,  we  had  done  so  in 
spite  of  our  education  there.  I  do  not  know  who  wrote  it; 
whoever  he  was,  I  am  much  obliged  to  him  for  a  very  com 
forting  word.  For,  discipline  apart,  it  was  literally  "  in  spite 
of  our  education  "  that  we  learned  anything  worth  knowing 
at  Princeton — as  it  then  was. 

From  this  point  a  new  phase  of  life  begins.     Prominent 


104  MEMOIRS. 

in  it  and  as  its  moving  power  was  the  great  kindness  of  my 
father.  That  I  had  graduated  at  all  under  any  conditions 
was  gratifying,  and  so  was  the  fact  that  it  was  not  in  reality 
without  the  so-called  Second  Honour,  despite  my  low  grade. 
And  the  pitiable  condition  of  my  health  was  considered. 
During  the  last  year  I  had  taken  lessons  in  dancing  and 
fencing,  which  helped  me  a  little,  and  I  looked  as  if  I  might 
become  strong  with  a  change  of  life.  So  my  father  took  my 
mother  and  me  on  a  grand  excursion.  We  went  to  Stoning- 
ton,  New  York,  and  Saratoga,  where  I  attended  a  ball — my 
first — and  then  on  to  Niagara.  On  the  way  we  stopped  at 
Auburn,  where  there  was  a  great  State-prison,  which  I  visited 
alone.  There  was  among  its  attractions  a  noted  murderer 
under  sentence  of  death.  There  were  two  or  three  ladies  and 
gentlemen  who  were  shown  by  the  warder  with  me  over  the 
building.  He  expressed  some  apprehension  as  to  showing 
us  the  murderer,  for  he  was  a  very  desperate  character.  We 
entered  a  large  room,  and  I  saw  a  really  gentlemanly-looking 
man  heavily  ironed,  who  was  reading  a  newspaper.  While 
the  others  conversed  with  him,  I  endeavoured  to  make  unob 
served  a  sketch  of  his  face.  The  warder  noticing  this,  called 

O  ' 

me  to  the  front  to  make  it  boldly,  and  the  prisoner,  smiling, 
told  me  to  go  on  with  it ;  which  I  did,  and  that  not  so  badly 
— at  least,  the  sitter  approved  of  it. 

So  we  went  up  the  beautiful  Hudson,  which  far  surpasses 
the  Rhine,  and  yields  the  palm  only  to  the  Danube,  stopping 
at  Poughkeepsie  and  Albany,  and  so  on  to  Niagara  Falls. 
On  the  way  we  passed  through  a  burning  forest.  My  awe  at 
this  wonderful  sight  amused  some  one  present  to  whom  it 
was  a  familiar  thing.  Which  reminds  me  that  about  the 
time  when  I  first  went  to  college,  but  while  staying  at  Con 
gress  Hall,  I  there  met  a  youth  from  Alabama  or  Mississippi, 
who  was  on  his  way  to  Princeton  to  join  our  ranks.  To  him 
I  of  course  showed  every  attention,  and  by  way  of  promoting 
his  happiness  took  him  to  the  top  of  the  belfry  of  the  State 
House,  whence  there  is  a  fine  view.  While  there  I  casually 


BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH.  105 

remarked  what  a  number  of  ships  there  were  in  the  river, 
Avhereupon  he  eagerly  cried,  "  Oh,  show  me  one !  I  never 
saw  a  ship  in  all  my  life  !  "  I  gazed  at  him  in  utter  aston 
ishment,  as  if  I  would  say,  "  What  manner  of  man  art  thou  ?  " 
and  then  recalling  myself,  said,  "  Well,  we  are  just  equal,  for 
you  never  saw  a  ship,  and  I  never  saw  a  cotton-field.''''  The 
young  man  smiled  incredulously,  and  replied,  "  Now  I  know 
that  you  are  trying  to  humbug  me,  for  how  could  you  grow 
up  without  ever  seeing  cotton-fields  ?  " 

We  arrived  at  Niagara  about  noon,  and  I  at  once  went  to 
see  the  Falls.  There  was  a  very  respectable-looking  old  gen 
tleman,  evidently  from  the  far  South,  with  two  young  ladies, 
one  a  great  beauty,  advancing  just  before.  I  heard  him  say, 
"  Now,  keep  your  eyes  closed,  or  look  down  till  you  can  have 
a  full  view."  I  did  the  same,  and  when  he  cried  "  Look  up  ! " 
did  so.  It  was  one  of  the  great  instants  of  my  life. 

I  know  not  how  it  was,  but  that  first  glance  suggested  to 
me  something  cJiivalric.  It  may  have  been  from  Byron's 
simile  of  the  tail  of  the  white  horse  and  the  cataract,  and  the 
snow-white  steed  of  that  incarnation  of  nobility,  Crescentius, 
and  there  rang  in  my  memory  a  mystical  verse — 

"  My  eye  bears  a  glance  like  the  gleam  of  a  lance 

When  I  hear  the  waters  dash  and  dance  ; 
And  I  smile  with  glee,  for  I  love  to  see 
The  sight  of  anything  that's  free  ! " 

But  it  was  a  mingled  sense  of  nobility,  and  above  all  of 
freedom,  which  impressed  me  in  that  roaring  mist  of  waters, 
in  the  wild  river  leaping  as  in  reckless  sport  over  the  vast 
broad  precipice.  It  is  usual,  especially  for  those  who  have  no 
gift  of  description,  to  say  that  Niagara  is  "  utterly  indescrib 
able,"  and  the  Visitors'  Book  has  this  opinion  repeated  by 
the  American  Philistine  on  every  page.  But  that  is  because 
those  who  say  so  have  no  proper  comprehension  of  facts 
stated,  no  poetic  faculty,  and  no  imagination.  Of  course  no 
mere  description,  however  perfect,  would  give  the  same  con 
ception  of  even  a  pen  or  a  button  as  would  the  sight  thereof ; 


106  MEMOIRS. 

but  it  is  absurd  and  illogical  to  speak  as  if  this  were  peculiar 
to  a  great  thing  alone.  For  my  part,  I  believe  that  the  mere 
description  to  a  poet,  or  to  one  who  has  dwelt  by  wood  and 
wold  and  steeped  his  soul  in  Nature,  of  a  tremendous  cataract 
a  mile  in  breadth  and  two  hundred  feet  high,  cleft  by  a 
wooded  island,  and  rushing  onward  below  in  awful  rocky 
rapids  with  a  mighty  roar,  would,  could,  or  should  convey  a 
very  good  idea  of  the  great  sight.  For  I  found  in  after 
years,  when  I  came  to  see  Venice  and  the  temples  on  the 
Nile,  that  they  were  picturesquely  or  practically  precisely 
what  I  had  expected  to  see,  not  one  shade  or  nuance  of  an 
expression  more  or  less.  As  regards  Rome  and  all  Gothic 
cathedrals,  I  had  been  assured  so  often,  or  so  generally,  by  all 
"  intelligent  tourists,"  that  they  were  all  wretched  rubbish, 
that  I  was  amazed  to  find  them  so  beautiful.  And  so  much 
as  to  anticipations  of  Niagara,  which  I  have  thrice  visited, 
and  the  constant  assertion  by  cads  unutterable  that  it  is  "  in 
describable." 

While  at  Niagara  for  three  days,  I  walked  about  a  great 
deal  with  a  young  lady  whose  acquaintance  we  had  made  at 
the  hotel.  As  she  was,  I  verily  believe,  the  very  first,  not  a 
relative,  with  whom  I  had  ever  taken  a  walk,  or,  I  may  al 
most  say,  formed  an  acquaintance,  it  constituted  an  event  in 
my  life  equal  to  Niagara  itself  in  importance.  I  was  at  this 
time  just  twenty-one,  and  certain  I  am  that  among  twenty- 
one  thousand  college  graduates  of  my  age  in  America,  of  the 
same  condition  of  life,  there  was  not  another  so  inexperienced 
in  worldly  ways,  or  so  far  behind  his  age,  or  so  "  docile  unto 
discipline."  I  was,  in  fact,  morally  where  most  boys  in  the 
United  States  are  at  twelve  or  thirteen  ;  which  is  a  very  great 
mistake  where  there  is  a  fixed  determination  that  the  youth 
shall  make  his  own  way  in  life.  We  cannot  have  boys  good 
little  angels  at  home  and  devils  in  business  abroad. — Horum 
utrum  magis  velim,  milri  incertnm  est. 


III. 

UNIVERSITY  LIFE  AND  TEA  VEL  IN  EUROPE. 

1845-1848. 

Passage  in  a  sailing  ship — Gibraltar — Marseilles — Smugglers  and  a 
slaver — Italy — Life  in  Rome — Torlonia's  balls  and  the  last  great 
Carnival  of  1846 — Navone,  the  chief  of  police — Florence — Venice — 
How  I  passed  the  Bridge  of  Sighs — The  Black  Bait — Slavery — 
Crossing  the  Simplon — Switzerland — Pleasing  introduction  to  Ger 
many — Student  life  at  Heidelberg — Captain  Medwin — Justinus 
Kerner — How  I  saw  Jenny  Lind — Munich — Lola  Montez— Our 
house  on  fire — All  over  Germany — How  1  was  turned  out  of  Po 
land — Paris  in  1847 — The  Revolution  of  1848 — I  become  con 
spirator  and  captain  of  barricades — Taking  of  the  Tuileries — The 
police  bow  me  out  of  France — A  season  in  London — Return  to 
America. 

AFTER  our  return  to  Philadelphia  something  of  great  im 
portance  to  me  began  to  be  discussed.  My  cousin  Samuel 
Godfrey,  who  was  a  few  years  older  than  I,  finding  himself 
threatened  with  consumption,  of  which  all  his  family  died, 
resolved  to  go  to  Marseilles  on  a  voyage,  and  persuaded  my 
father  to  let  me  accompany  him.  At  this  time  I  had,  as  in 
deed  for  many  years  before,  such  a  desire  to  visit  Europe  that 
I  might  almost  have  died  of  it.  So  it  was  at  last  determined 
that  I  should  go  with  "  Sam,"  and  after  all  due  preparations 
and  packing,  I  bade  farewell  to  mother  and  Henry  and  the 
dear  little  twin  sisters,  and  youngest  Emily,  our  pet,  and 
went  with  my  father  to  New  York,  where  I  was  the  guest 
for  a  few  days  of  my  cousin,  Mrs.  Caroline  Wight,  whom  the 
reader  may  recall  as  the  one  who  used  to  correct  my  French 
exercises  in  Dedham. 

We  were  to  sail  in  a  packet  or  ship  for  Marseilles.     My 


108  MEMOIRS. 

father  saw  me  off.  He  was  wont  to  say  in  after  years,  that 
as  I  stood  on  the  deck  at  the  last  moment  and  looked  affec 
tionately  at  him,  there  was  in  my  eyes  an  expression  of  inno 
cence  or  goodness  and  gentleness  which  he  never  saw  again. 
Which  was,  I  am  sure,  very  true ;  the  great  pity  being  that 
that  look  had  not  utterly  disappeared  years  before.  If  it  only 
had  vanished  with  boyhood,  as  it  ought  to  have  done,  my 
father  would  have  been  spared  much  sorrow. 

At  this  time  I  was  a  trifle  over  six  feet  two  in  height,  and 
had  then  and  for  some  time  after  so  fair  a  red  and  white  com 
plexion,  that  the  young  ladies  in  Philadelphia  four  years 
later  teased"  me  by  spreading  the  report  that  I  used  rouge 
and  white  paint !  I  was  not  as  yet  "  filled  out,"  but  held 
myself  straightly,  and  was  fairly  proportioned.  I  wore  a  cap 
a  Vitudiant)  very  much  over  my  left  ear,  and  had  very  long, 
soft,  straight,  dark-brown  hair ;  my  dream  and  ideal  being 
the  German  student.  I  was  extremely  shy  of  strangers,  but 
when  once  acquainted  soon  became  very  friendly,  and  in  most 
cases  made  a  favourable  impression.  I  was  "  neat  and  very 
clean-looking,"  as  a  lady  described  me,  for  the  daily  bath  or 
sponge  was  universal  in  Philadelphia  long  ere  it  was  even  in 
England,  and  many  a  time  when  travelling  soon  after,  I  went 
without  a  meal  in  order  to  have  my  tub,  when  time  did  not 
permit  of  both.  I  was  very  sensitive,  and  my  feelings  were 
far  too  easily  pained  ;  on  the  other  hand,  I  had  no  trace  of 
the  common  New  England  youth's  vulgar  failing  of  nagging, 
teasing,  or  vexing  others  under  colour  of  being  "  funny  "  or 
"  cute."  A  very  striking,  and,  all  things  considered,  a  re 
markable  characteristic  was  that  I  hated,  as  I  still  do,  with 
all  my  soul,  gossip  about  other  people  and  their  affairs ;  never 
read  even  a  card  not  meant  for  my  eyes,  and  detested  curi 
osity,  prying,  and  inqnisitiveness  as  I  did  the  devil.  I  owe  a 
great  development  of  this  to  a  curious  incident.  It  must 
have  been  about  the  time  when  I  first  went  to  college,  that  I 
met  at  Cape  May  a  naval  officer,  who  roomed  with  me  in  a 
cottage,  a  farm-house  near  a  hotel,  and  whom  I  greatly  ad- 


STUDENT  LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE.        1QO 

mired  as  a  man  of  the  world  and  a  model  of  good  manners. 
To  him  one  day  I  communicated  some  gossip  about  some 
body,  when  he  abruptly  cut  me  short,  and  when  I  would  go 
on,  informed  me  that  he  never  listened  to  such  talk.  This 
made  a  very  deep  impression  on  me,  which  never  disap 
peared  ;  nay,  it  grew  with  my  growth  and  strengthened  with 
my  strength.  Xow  the  New  England  people,  especially  Bos- 
tonians,  are  inordinately  given  to  knowing  everything  about 
everybody,  and  to  "  tittle-tattle,"  while  the  Southerners  are 
comparatively  free  from  it  and  very  incurious.  Two-thirds 
of  the  students  at  Princeton  were  of  the  iirst  families  in  the 
South,  and  there  my  indifference  to  what  did  not  personally 
concern  one  was  regarded  as  a  virtue.  But  there  is  a  spot  in 
this  sun — that  he  who  never  cares  a  straw  to  know  about  the 
affairs  of  .other  people,  will,  not  only  if  he  live  in  Boston,  but 
almost  anywhere  else — Old  England  not  at  all  excepted — be 
forced,  in  spite  of  himself,  and  though  he  were  as  meek  and 
lowly  as  man  may  be,  into  looking  down  on  and  feeling  him 
self  superior  unto  those  people  who  will  read  a  letter  not 
meant  for  their  eyes,  or  eavesdrop,  or  talk  in  any  way  about 
anybody  in  a  strain  to  which  they  would  not  have  that  per 
son  listen.  Which  reminds  me  that  in  after  years  I  got  some" 
praise  in  the  newspapers  for  the  saying  that  a  Yankee's 
idea  of  hell  was  a  place  where  he  must  mind  his  own  busi 
ness.  It  came  about  in  this  way.  In  a  letter  to  Charles 
Astor  Bristed  I  made  this  remark,  and  illustrated  it  with  a 
picture  of  Virgil  taking  a  Yankee  attired  in  a  chimney-pot 
hat  and  long  night-gown  into  the  Inferno,  over  whose  gate 
was  written — 

"  Badate  a  vostri  affari  voi  che  i  titrate  !  " 
(Mind  your  own  business  ye  who  enter  here !) 

One  day  soon  after  my  arrival  at  Princeton,  George  Boker 
laid  on  the  table  by  me  a  paper  or  picture  with  its  face  down. 
I  took  no  notice  of  it.  After  a  time  he  said,  "  Why  don't  you 
look  at  that  picture  ?  "  I  replied  simply,  "  If  you  wanted  me 
to  see  it  you  would  have  turned  it  face  up."  To  which  he 
*  6 


110  MEMOIRS. 

remarked,  "I  put  it  there  to  see  whether  you  would  look  at 
it.  I  thought  you  would  not."  George  was  a  "  deep,  saga 
cious  file,"  who  studied  men  like  books. 

My  cousin  who  accompanied  me  had  as  a  boy  "  run  away 
and  gone  to  sea  "  cod-fishing  on  the  Grand  Banks.  If  I  had 
gone  with  him  it  would  have  done  me  good.  Another 
cousin,  Benjamin  Stimson,  did  the  same ;  he  is  the  S.  often 
mentioned  in  Dana's  "  Two  Years  Before  the  Mast."  Dana 
and  Stimson  were  friends,  and  ran  away  together.  It  was 
quite  the  rule  for  all  my  Yankee  cousins  to  do  this,  and  they 
all  benefited  by  it.  In  consequence  of  his  nautical  experi 
ence  Sam  was  soon  at  home  among  all  sailors,  and  not  having 
my  scruples  as  to  knowing  who  was  who  or  their  affairs,  soon 
knew  everything  that  was  going  on.  Our  captain  was  a 
handsome,  dissipated,  and  "  loud  "  young  man,  with  rather 
more  sail  than  ballast,  but  good-natured  and  obliging. 

"  Come  day,  go  day,"  we  passed  the  Gulf  Stream  and  the 
Azores,  and  had  long  sunny  calms,  when  we  could  not  sail, 
and  lay  about  on  deck,  warm  and  lazy,  and  saw  the  Azores, 
and  so  on,  till  we  were  near  the  Spanish  coast.  One  evening 
there  clipped  right  under  our  lee  a  fisherman's  smack.  "  I 
say,  Leland,  hail  that  fellow  !  "  said  the  captain.  So  I  called 
in  Spanish,  "  Adonde  venga  usted?" 

"  Da  Algesiras,"  was  the  reply,  which  thrilled  out  of  my 
heart  the  thought  that,  like  the  squire  in  Chaucer — 

"  He  had  been  at  the  siege  of  Algecir." 

So  I  called,  in  parting,  "  Dios  vaya  con  usted  ! " 
Sam  informed  me  that  the  manner  in  which  I  hailed  the 
fisherman  had  made  a  great  impression  on  the  captain,  who 
lauded  me  highly.     It  also  made  one  on  me,  because  it  was 
the  first  time  I  ever  spoke  to  a  European  in  Europe! 

Anon  we  were  boarded  by  an  old  weather-beaten  seadog 
of  a  Spanish  pilot,  unto  whom  I  felt  a  great  attraction  ;  and 
greeting  him  in  Malagan  Spanish,  such  as  I  had  learned  from 
Manuel  Gori,  as  Hermano  !  and  offering  him  with  ceremoni- 


STUDENT  LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE.        m 

ous  politeness  a  good  cigar,  I  also  drew  his  regards ;  all 
Spaniards,  as  I  well  knew,  being  extremely  fond,  beyond  all 
men  on  earth,  of  intimacy  with  gentlemen.  We  were  de 
layed  for  two  days  at  Gibraltar.  I  may  here  remark,  by  the 
way,  that  this  voyage  of  our  ship  is  described  in  a  book  by 
Mrs.  Fanny  Kemble  Butler,  entitled  "  A  Year  of  Consolation 
Abroad."  She  was  on  board,  but  never  spoke  to  a  soul 
among  the  passengers. 

I  was  never  acquainted  with  Mrs.  Butler,  as  I  easily  might 
have  been,  for  we  had  some  very  intimate  friends  in  common ; 
but  as  a  boy  I  had  been  "  frightened  of  her  "  by  certain  anec 
dotes  as  to  her  temper,  and  perhaps  the  influence  lasted  into 
later  years.  I  have,  however,  heard  her  lecture.  She  was  a 
very  clever  woman,  and  Mr.  Henry  James,  in  Temple  Bar  for 
March,  1893,  thus  does  justice  to  her  conversational  power  : 

"  Her  talk  reflected  a  thousand  vanished  and  present  things :  but 
there  were  those  of  her  friends  for  whom  its  value  was,  almost  before 
any  other,  documentary.  The  generations  move  so  fast  and  change  so 
much,  that  Mrs.  Kemble  testified  even  more  than  she  affected  to  do, 
•which  was  much,  to  ancient  manners  and  a  close  chapter  of  history. 
Her  conversation  swarmed  with  people  and  with  criticism  of  people, 
with  the  ghosts  of  a  dead  society.  She  had,  in  two  hemispheres,  seen 
every  one  and  known  every  one,  had  assisted  at  the  social  comedy 
of  her  age.  Her  own  habits  and  traditions  were  in  themselves  a 
survival  of  an  era  less  democratic  and  more  mannered.  I  have  no 
room  for  enumerations,  which,  moreover,  would  be  invidious ;  but  the 
old  London  of  her  talk — the  direction  I  liked  is  best  to  take — was, 
in  particular,  a  gallery  of  portraits.  She  made  Count  d'Orsay  fa 
miliar,  she  made  Charles  Greville  present;  I  thought  it  wonderful 
that  she  could  be  anecdotic  about  Miss  Edgeworth.  She  reanimated 
the  old  drawing-rooms,  relighted  the  old  lamps,  retimed  the  old  pianos. 
The  finest  comedy  of  all,  perhaps,  was  that  of  her  own  generous  whim 
sicalities.  She  was  superbly  willing  to  amuse,  and  on  any  terms ;  and 
her  temper  could  do  it  as  well  as  her  wit.  If  either  of  these  had  failed, 
her  eccentricities  were  always  there.  She  had  more  '  habits '  than  most 
people  have  room  in  life  for,  and  a  theory  that  to  a  person  of  her  dis 
position  they  were  as  necessary  as  the  close  meshes  of  a  strait- waistcoat. 
If  she  had  not  lived  by  rule  (on  her  showing)  she  would  have  lived  in 
fallibly  by  riot.  Her  rules  and  her  riots,  her  reservations  and  her  con- 


MEMOIRS. 

cessions,  all  her  luxuriant  theory  and  all  her  extravagant  practice ;  her 
drollery,  that  mocked  at  her  melancholy ;  her  imagination,  that  mocked 
at  her  drollery  ;  and  her  wonderful  manners,  all  her  own,  that  mocked 
a  little  at  everything:  these  were  part  of  the  constant  freshness  which 
made  those  who  loved  her  love  her  so  much.  '  If  my  servants  can  live 
with  me  a  week,  they  can  live  with  me  for  ever,'  she  often  said  ;  '  but  the 
first  week  sometimes  kills  them.'  A  domestic  who  had  been  long  in  her 
service  quitted  his  foreign  home  the  instant  he  heard  of  her  death,  and, 
travelling  for  thirty  hours,  arrived  travel-stained  and  breathless,  like  a 
messenger  in  a  romantic  tale,  just  in  time  to  drop  a  handful  of  flowers 
into  her  grave." 

There  came  on  board  of  our  boat  a  fruit-dealer,  and  the 
old  pilot,  seeing  that  I  was  about  to  invest  a  real  in  grapes, 
said,  "  Let  me  buy  them  for  you  " ;  which  he  did,  obtaining 
half-a-peck  of  exquisite  large  grapes  of  a  beautiful  purple 
colour. 

There  was  a  middle-aged  lady  among  the  passengers,  of 
whom  the  least  I  can  say  was,  that  she  had  a  great  many 
little  winning  ways  of  making  herself  disagreeable.  She  im 
posed  frightfully  on  me  while  on  board,  getting  me  to  mark 
her  trunks  for  her,  and  carry  them  into  the  hold,  &c.  (the 
sailors  disliked  her  so  much  that  they  refused  to  touch  them), 
and  then  cut  me  dead  when  on  shore.  This  ancient  horror, 
seeing  me  with  so  many  grapes,  and  learning  the  price,  con 
cluded  that  if  a  mere  boy  like  me  could  get  so  many,  she,  a 
lady,  could  for  four  reals  lay  in  a  stock  which  would  last  for 
life,  more  or  less.  So  she  obtained  a  bushel-basket,  expect 
ing  to  get  it  heaped  full ;  but  what  was  her  wrath  at  only 
getting  for  her  silver  half-dollar  just  enough  to  hide  the 
bottom  thereof!  Great  was  her  rage,  but  rage  availed  her 
nought.  She  did  not  call  old  pilots  "  Brother,"  or  give  them 
cigars,  or  talk  Malagano  politely.  She  was  not  even  "  half- 
Spanish,"  and  therefore,  as  we  used  to  say  at  college  of  cer 
tain  unpopular  people,  was  "  a  bad  smoke.," 

We  went  on  shore  on  Sunday,  which  in  those  days  always 
made  Gibraltar  literally  like  a  fancy  ball.  The  first  person 
whom  I  met  was  a  pretty  young  lady  in  full,  antique,  rich 


STUDENT  LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE.        H3 

Castilian  costume,  followed  by  a  servant  bearing  her  book  of 
devotion.  Seeing  my  gaze  of  admiration,  she  smiled,  at 
which  I  bowed,  and  she  returned  the  salute  and  went  her 
way.  Such  an  event  had  never  happened  to  me  before  in  all 
my  life.  I  accepted  it  philosophically  as  one  of  a  new  order 
of  things  into  which  I  was  destined  to  enter.  Then  I  saw 
men  from  every  part  of  Spain  in  quaint  dresses,  Castilians  in 
cloaks,  Andalusians  in  the  jaunty  majo  rig,  Gallegcs,  Moors 
from  the  Barbary  coast,  many  Greeks,  old  Jews  in  gabardines, 
Scotch  Highland  soldiers,  and  endless  more — concursus 
splendidus — non  possum  non  mirari. 

I  felt  myself  very  happy  and  very  much  at  home  in  all 
this.  I  strolled  about  the  streets  talking  Spanish  to  every 
body.  Then  I  met  with  a  smuggler,  who  asked  me  if  I 
wanted  to  buy  cigars.  I  did.  In  New  York  my  uncle 
George  had  given  me  a  box  of  five  hundred  excellent  Ha- 
vanas,  and  these  had  lasted  me  exactly  twenty  days.  I  had 
smoked  the  last  twenty-five  on  the  last  day.  So  I  went  and 
bought  at  a  low  enough  figure  a  box  of  the  worst  cigars  I 
had  ever  met  with.  But  youth  can  smoke  anything — except 
deceit. 

Entrance  to  the  galleries  was  strictly  forbidden  in  those 
days,  but  an  incorruptible  British  sergeant,  for  an  incorrupt 
ible  dollar  or  two,  showed  us  over  them.  There  was,  too,  a 
remarkable  man,  a  ship-chandler  named  Felipe,  to  whom  I 
was  introduced.  Felipe  spoke  twenty-four  languages.  He 
boarded  every  ship  and  knew  everybody.  Gibraltar  was  then 
a  vast  head- quarters  of  social  evils,  or  blessings,  and  Felipe, 
who  was  a  perfect  Hercules,  mentioned  incidentally  that  he 
had  had  a  new  maja,  or  moza,  or  mtiger,  or  puta,  every  night 
for  twenty  years !  which  was  confirmed  by  common  report. 
It  was  a  firm  principle  with  him  to  always  change.  This  ex 
traordinary  fact  made  me  reflect  deeply  on  it  as  a  psycho 
logical  phenomenon.  This  far  surpassed  anything  I  had  ever 
heard  at  Princeton.  Then  this  and  that  great  English  dig 
nitary  was  pointed  out  to  me — black  eyes  ogled  me — every- 


MEMOIRS. 

body  was  polite,  for  I  had  a  touch  of  the  Spanish  manner 
Avhieh  I  had  observed  in  the  ex-Oapitan-General  and  others 
whom  I  had  known  in  Philadelphia ;  and,  in  short,  I  saw 
more  that  was  picturesque  and  congenial  in  that  one  day  than 
I  had  ever  beheld  in  all  my  life  before.  I  had  got  into  "  my 
plate." 

From  Gibraltar  our  ship  sailed  on  to  Marseilles.  The 
coasts  were  full  of  old  ruins,  which  I  sketched.  We  lay  off 
Malaga  for  a  day,  but  I  could  not  go  ashore,  much  as  I  longed 
to.  At  Marseilles,  Sam  and  the  captain  and  I  went  to  a  very 
good  hotel. 

Now  it  had  happened  that  on  the  voyage  before  a  certain 
French  lady — the  captain  said  she  was  a  Baroness — having 
fallen  in  love  with  the  said  captain,  had  secreted  herself  on 
board  the  vessel,  greatly  to  his  horror,  and  reappeared  when 
out  at  sea.  Therefore,  as  soon  as  we  arrived  at  Marseilles, 
the  injured  husband  came  raging  on  board  and  tried  to  shoot 
the  captain,  which  made  a  great  scandal.  And,  moved  by 
this  example,  the  coloured  cook  of  our  vessel,  who  had  a  wife, 
shot  the  head-waiter  on  the  same  day,  being  also  instigated 
by  jealousy.  Sam  Godfrey  chaffed  the  captain  for  setting  a 
bad  moral  example  to  the  niggers — which  was  all  quite  a 
change  from  Princeton.  Life  was  beginning  to  be  lively. 

There  had  come  over  on  the  vessel  with  us,  in  the  cabin, 
a  droll  character,  an  actor  in  a  Philadelphia  theatre,  who  had 
promptly  found  a  lodging  in  a  kind  of  maritime  boarding- 
house.  Getting  into  some  difficulty,  as  he  could  not  speak 
French  he  came  in  a  great  hurry  to  beg  me  to  go  with  him 
to  his  pension  to  act  as  interpreter,  which  I  did.  I  found  at 
once  that  it  was  a  Spanish  house,  and  the  resort  of  smugglers. 
The  landlady  was  a  very  pretty  black-eyed  woman,  who  played 
the  guitar,  and  sang  Spanish  songs,  and  brought  out  Spanish 
wine,  and  was  marvellously  polite  to  me,  to  my  astonishment, 
not  unmingled  with  innocent  gratitude. 

There  I  was  at  home.  At  Princeton  I  had  learned  to  play 
the  guitar,  and  from  Manuel  Gori,  who  had  during  all  his 


STUDENT  LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE.        H5 

boyhood  been  familiar  with  low  life  and  smugglers,  I  had 
learned  many  songs  and  some  slang.  And  so,  with  a  crowd 
of  dark,  fierce,  astonished  faces  round  me  of  men  eagerly 
listening,  I  sang  a  smuggler's  song — 

"  Yo  que  soy  coutrabandista, 
Y  campo  a  rno  rispeto, 
A  toclos  mi  desafio, 
Quien  me  compra  hilo  negro  ? 
Ay  jaleo ! 
Muchachas  jaleo ! 
Quien  me  compra  hilo  negro ! " 

Great  was  the  amazement  and  thundering  the  applause 
from  my  auditors.  Let  the  reader  imagine  a  nun  of  fourteen 
years  asked  to  sing,  and  bursting  out  with  "  Go  it  while  you're 
young!"  Then  I  sang  the  Tragala,  which  coincided  with 
the  political  views  of  my  friends.  But  my  grand  coup  was 
in  reserve.  I  had  learned  from  Borrow's  "  Gypsies  in  Spain  " 
a  long  string  of  Gitano  or  Gypsy  verses,  such  as — 

"  El  eray  guillabela, 
El  eray  obusno ; 
Que  avella  romanella, 
No  avella  obusno ! " 

"  Loud  sang  the  gorgio  to  his  fair, 

And  thus  his  ditty  ran : — 
'  Oh,  may  the  Gypsy  maiden  come, 

And  not  the  Gypsy  man  ! '  " 

And  yet  again — 

"  Coruncho  Lopez,  gallant  lad, 

A  smuggling  he  would  ride; 
So  stole  his  father's  ambling  prad, 
And  therefore  to  the  galleys  sad 

Coruncho  now  I  guide." 

This  was  a  final  coup.  How  the  diabolo  I,  such  an  innocent 
stranger  youth,  had  ever  learned  Spanish  Gypsy — the  least 
knowledge  of  which  in  Spain  implies  unfathomable  iniquity 


MEMOIRS. 

and  fastness — was  beyond  all  comprehension.  So  I  departed 
full  of  honour  amid  thunders  of  applause. 

From  the  first  day  our  room  was  the  resort  of  all  the 
American  ship-captains  in  Marseilles.  We  kept  a  kind  of 
social  hall  or  exchange,  with  wine  and  cigars  on  the  side- 
table,  all  of  which  dropping  in  and  out  rather  reminded  me 
of  Princeton.  My  friend  the  actor  had  pitched  upon  a  young 
English  Jew,  who  seemed  to  me  to  be  a  doubtful  character. 
He  sang  very  well,  and  was  full  of  local  news  and  gossip. 
He,  too,  was  at  hom£  among  us.  One  evening  our  captain 
told  us  how  he  every  day  smuggled  ashore  fifty  cigars  in  his 
hat.  At  hearing  this,  I  saw  a  gleam  in  the  eyes  of  the  young 
man,  which  was  a  revelation  to  me.  When  he  had  gone,  I 
said  to  the  captain,  "  You  had  better  not  smuggle  any  cigars 
to-morrow.  That  fellow  is  a  spy  of  the  police." 

The  next  day  Captain  Jack  on  leaving  his  ship  was  ac 
costed  by  the  douaniers,  who  politely  requested  him  to  take 
off  his  hat.  He  refused,  and  was  then  told  that  he  must  go 
before  the  prefet.  There  the  request  was  renewed.  He  com 
plied  ;  but  "  forewarned,  forearmed  " — there  was  nothing 
in  it. 

Captain  Jack  complimented  me  on  my  sagacity,  and  scold 
ed  the  actor  for  making  such  friends.  But  he  had  uncon 
sciously  made  me  familiar  with  one  compared  to  whom  the 
spy  was  a  trifle.  I  have  already  fully  and  very  truthfully  de 
scribed  this  remarkable  man  in  an  article  in  Temple  Bar,  but 
his  proper  place  is  here.  He  was  a  little  modest-looking  Eng 
lishman,  who  seemed  to  me  rather  to  look  up  to  the  fast 
young  American  captains  as  types  or  models  of  more  daring 
beings.  Sometimes  he  would  tell  a  mildly-naughty  tale  as  if 
it  were  a  wild  thing.  He  consulted  with  me  as  to  going  to 
Paris  and  hearing  lectures  at  the  University,  his  education 
having  been  neglected.  He  had,  I  was  told,  experienced  a 
sad  loss,  having  just  lost  his  ship  on  the  Guinea  coast.  One 
day  I  condoled  with  him,  saying  that  I  heard  he  had  been 
ruined. 


STUDENT  LIFE  AND   TRAVEL  IN   EUROPE. 

"  Yes,"  replied  the  captain,  "  I  have.  Something  like 
this  :  My  mother  once  had  a  very  pretty  housemaid  who  dis 
appeared.  Some  time  after  I  met  her  magnificently  dressed, 
aud  I  said,  '  Sally,  where  do  you  live  now  ? '  She  replied, 
'  Please,  sir,  I  don't  live  anywhere  now  ;  I've  been  ruined.''  " 

Sam  explained  to  me  that  the  captain  had  a  keg  of  gold- 
dust  and  many  diamonds,  and  having  wrecked  his  vessel  in 
tentionally,  was  going  to  London  to  get  a  heavy  insurance. 
He  had  been  "  ruined  "  to  his  very  great  advantage.  Then 
Sam  remarked — 

"  You  don't  know  the  captain.  I  tell  you,  Charley,  that 
man  is  an  old  slaver  or  pirate.  See  how  I'll  draw  him  out." 

The  next  day  Sam  began  to  talk.  He  remarked  that  he 
had  been  to  sea  and  had  some  money  which  he  wished  to  in 
vest.  His  health  required  a  warm  climate,  such  as  the  Afri 
can  coast.  We  would  both,  in  fact,  like  to  go  into  the  Guinea 
business.  \_Bozales — "  sacks  of  charcoal,"  I  remarked  in  Span 
ish  slaver-slang.]  The  captain  smiled.  He  had  apparently 
heard  the  expression  before.  He  considered  it.  He  had  a 
great  liking  for  me,  and  thought  that  a  trip  or  two  under  the 
black  flag  would  do  me  a  great  deal  of  good.  So  he  noted 
down  our  address,  and  promised  that  as  soon  as  he  should  get 
a  ship  we  should  hear  from  him. 

After  that  the  captain,  regarding  me  as  enlisted  in  the 
fraternity,  and  only  waiting  till  'twas  "  time  for  us  to  go," 
had  no  secrets  from  me.  He  was  very  glad  that  I  knew  Span 
ish  and  French,  and  explained  that  if  I  would  learn  Coro- 
mantee  or  Ebo,  it  would  aid  us  immensely  in  getting  cargoes. 
By  the  way,  I  became  very  well  acquainted  in  after  years  with 
King  George  of  Bonney,  and  can  remember  entertaining  him 
with  a  story  how  a  friend  of  mine  once  (in  Cuba)  bought  thir 
ty  Ebos,  and  on  entering  the  barracoon  the  next  morning, 
found  them  all  hanging  by  the  necks  dead,  like  a  row  of  pos 
sums  in  the  Philadelphia  market — they  having,  with  magnifi 
cent  pluck,  and  in  glorious  defiance  of  Buckra  civilisation, 
resolved  to  go  back  to  Africa.  I  have  found  other  blacks 


MEMOIRS. 

who  believed  that  all  good  darkies  when  they  die  go  to  Guinea, 
and  one  of  these  was  very  touching  and  strange,  lie  had  been 
brought  as  a  slave-child  to  South  Carolina,  but  was  always 
haunted  by  the  memory  of  a  group  of  cocoa-palms  by  a  place 
where  the  wild  white  surf  of  the  ocean  bounded  up  to  the 
shore — a  rock,  sunshine,  and  sand.  There  lie  declared  his 
soul  would  go.  He  was  a  Voodoo,  and  a  man  of  marvellous 
strange  mind. 

Day  by  day  my  commander  gave  me,  as  I  honestly  believe, 
without  a  shadow  of  exaggeration,  all  the  terrific  details  of  a 
slaver's  life,  and  his  strange  experiences  in  buying  slaves  in 
the  interior.  Compared  to  the  awful  massacres  and  cruelties 
inflicted  by  the  blacks  on  one  another,  the  white  slave  trade 
seemed  to  be  philanthropic  and  humane.  He  had  seen  at  the 
grand  custom  in  Dahomey  2,500  men  killed,  and  a  pool  made 
of  their  blood  into  which  the  king's  wives  threw  themselves 
naked  and  wallowed.  "  One  day  fifteen  were  to  be  tortured 
to  death  for  witchcraft.  I  bought  them  all  for  an  old  dress- 
coat,"  said  the  captain.  "  I  didn't  want  them,  for  my  cargo 
was  made  up  ;  it  was  only  to  save  the  poor  devils'  lives." 

If  a  slaver  could  not  get  a  full  cargo,  and  met  with  a  weaker 
vessel  which  was  full,  it  was  at  once  attacked  and  plundered. 
Sometimes  there  would  be  desperate  resistance,  with  the  aid 
of  the  slaves.  "  I  have  seen  the  scuppers  run  with  blood," 
said  the  captain.  And  so  on,  with  much  more  of  the  same 
sort,  all  of  which  has  since  been  recorded  in  the  "  Journal  of 
Captain  Canot,"  from  which  latter  book  I  really  learned  noth 
ing  new.  I  might  add  the  "  Life  of  Hobart  Pacha,"  whom  I 
met  many  times  in  London.  A  real  old-fashioned  slaver  was 
fully  a  hundred  times  worse  than  an  average  pirate,  because 
he  ivas  the  latter  whenever  he  wished  to  rob,  and  in  his  busi 
ness  was  the  cause  of  far  more  suffering  and  death. 

The  captain  was  very  fond  of  reading  poetry,  his  favourite 
being  Wordsworth.  This  formed  quite  a  tie  between  us.  He 
was  always  rather  mild,  quiet,  and  old-fashioned — in  fact,  muff- 
ish.  Once  only  did  I  see  a  spark  from  him  which  showed 


STUDENT  LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE.        H9 

what  was  latent.  Captain  Jack  was  describing  a  most  extraor 
dinary  run  which  we  had  made  before  a  gale  from  Gibraltar 
to  Cape  de  Creux,  which  was,  indeed,  true  enough,  he  having 
a  very  fast  vessel.  But  the  Guinea  captain  denied  that  such 
time  had  ever  been  made  by  any  craft  ever  built.  "  And  I 
have  had  to  sail  sometimes  pretty  fast  in  my  time,"  he  added 
with  one  sharp  glance — no  more — but,  as  Byron  says  of  the 
look  of  Gulleyaz,  'twas  like  a  short  glimpse  of  hell.  Pretty 
fast !  I  should  think  so — now  and  then  from  an  English 
cruiser,  all  sails  wetted  down,  with  the  gallows  in  the  back 
ground.  But  as  I  had  been  on  board  with  Sam,  the  question 
was  settled.  We  had  made  a  run  which  was  beyond  all  prece 
dent. 

I  fancy  that  the  captain,  if  he  escaped  the  halter  or  the 
wave,  in  after  years  settled  down  in  some  English  coast- 
villao-e,  where  he  read  Wordsworth,  and  attended  church 

O       '  ' 

regularly,  and  was  probably  regarded  as  a  gentle  old  duffer 
by  the  younger  members  of  society.  But  take  him  for  all  in 
all,  he  was  the  mildest-mannered  man  that  ever  scuttled  ship 
or  cut  a  throat,  and  he  always  behaved  to  me  like  a  perfect 
gentleman,  and  never  uttered  an  improper  word. 

We  had  to  wait  one  month  till  my  cousin  could  get  certain 
news  from  America.  We  employed  the  time  in  travelling  in 
the  south,  visiting  Aries,  Nismes,  Montpellier,  and  other 
places.  An  English  gentleman  named  Gordon,  whom  I  had 
met  in  Marseilles,  had  given  me  a  letter  of  introduction  to 
M.  Saint  Eene  Taillandier  in  the  latter  place.  I  knew 
nothing  at  all  then  about  this  great  man,  or  that  he  was  the 
first  French  critic  of  German  literature,  but  I  presented  my 
letter,  and  he  kindly  went  with  me  about  the  town  to  show 
me  its  antiquities.  I  can  remember  discussing  Gothic  tracery 
with  him ;  also,  that  I  told  him  I  was  deeply  interested  in 
the  Troubadours.  He  recommended  Raynouard  and  several 
other  books,  when  finding  that  I  was  familiar  with  them  all, 
he  smiled,  and  said  that  he  believed  he  could  teach  me 
nothing  more.  I  did  not  know  it  then,  but  that  word 


120  MEMOIRS. 

from  him  would  have  been  as  good  as  a  diploma  for  me  in 
Paris. 

As  for  old  Koman  ruins  and  Gothic  churches,  and  cloisters 
grey,  and  the  arrowy  Khone,  and  castellated  bridges — every 
thing  was  in  a  more  original  moss-grown,  picturesque  condi 
tion  then  than  it  now  is — I  enjoyed  them  all  with  an  in 
tensity,  a  freshness  or  love,  which  passeth  all  belief.  I  had 
attended  Professor  Dodd's  lectures  more  than  once,  and 
illuminated  manuscripts,  and  had  bought  me  in  Marseilles 
Berty's  "  Dictionary  of  Gothic  Architecture,"  and  got  it  by 
heart,  and  began  to  think  of  making  a  profession  of  it,  which, 
if  I  had  known  it,  was  the  very  wisest  thing  I  could  have 
done.  And  that  this  is  no  idle  boast  is  clear  from  this,  that 
I  in  after  years  made  a  design  according  to  which  a  "  store," 
which  cost  £30,000,  was  built,  my  plan  being  believed  by 
another  skilled  architect  to  have  been  executed  by  a  "  pro 
fessional."  This  was  really  the  sad  slip  and  escape  of  my 
lifetime. 

In  those  days,  really  good  red  wine  was  given  to  every  one 
at  every  table ;  savoury  old-fashioned  dishes,  vegetables,  and 
fruits  were  served  far  more  freely  and  cheaply  than  they  now 
are,  when  every  dainty  is  sent  by  rail  to  Paris  or  London, 
and  the  drinking  of  Bordeaux  and  Burgundy  did  me  much 
good.  Blessed  days  of  cheapness  and  good  quality,  before 
chicory,  the  accursed  poison,  had  found  its  way  into  coffee, 
or  oleomargarine  was  invented,  or  all  things  canned — the 
world  will  never  see  ye  more !  I  have  now  lived  for  many 
months  in  a  first-class  Florence  hotel,  and  in  all  the  time 
have  not  tasted  one  fresh  Italian  mushroom,  or  truffle,  or 
olive — nothing  but  tasteless  abominations  bottled  in  France  ! 

It  was  settled  that  my  cousin  should  return  from  Mar 
seilles  to  the  United  States,  while  I  was  to  go  on  alone  to 
Italy.  It  was  misgivingly  predicted  at  home  by  divers  friends 
that  I  would  be  as  a  lamb  set  loose  among  wolves,  and  lose 
all  my  money  at  the  outstart.  Could  they  have  learned  that 
within  a  week  after  my  arrival  I  had  been  regarded  by 


STUDENT  LIFE  AND  TRAVEL   IN  EUROPE.        121 

Spanish  smugglers  as  a  brother,  and  tripped  up  a  spy  of  the 
police,  and  been  promised  a  situation  as  a  slaver's  and  pirate's 
assistant,  they  might  have  thought  that  I  had  begun  to  learn 
how  to  take  care  of  myself  in  a  hurry.  As  for  losing  my 
money,  I,  by  a  terrible  accident,  doubled  it,  as  I  will  here 
describe. 

Before  leaving  home,  a  lady  cousin  had  made  for  Samuel 
and  me  each  a  purse,  and  they  were  exactly  alike.  Now  by 
a  purse  I  mean  a  real  piirse,  and  not  a  pocket-book,  or  a 
porte-monnaie,  or  a  wallet — that  is,  I  mean  a  long  bag  with 
a  slit  and  two  rings,  and  nothing  else.  And  my  cousin 
having  often  scolded  me  for  leaving  mine  lying  about  in  our 
room,  I  seeing  it,  as  I  thought,  just  a  few  minutes  before  my 
departure,  lying  on  the  table,  pocketed  it,  thanking  God  that 
Sam  had  not  found  it,  or  scolded  me. 

I  went  on  board  the  steamboat  and  set  sail  towards  Italy. 
I  was  sea-sick  all  night,  but  felt  better  the  next  day.  Then 
I  hud  to  pay  out  some  money,  and  thought  I  would  look  over 
my  gold.  To  my  utter  amazement,  it  was  doubled !  This 
I  attributed  to  great  generosity  on  Sam's  part,  and  I  blessed 
him. 

But,  merciful  heavens !  what  were  my  sensations  at  find 
ing  in  the  lower  depth  of  my  pocket  another  purse  also  filled 
with  Napoleons  in  rouleaux  !  Then  it  all  flashed  upon  me. 
Samuel,  the  careful,  had  left  Ms  purse  lying  on  the  table,  and 
I  had  supposed  it  was  mine !  I  felt  as  wretched  as  if  I  had 
lost  instead  of  won. 

When  I  got  to  Naples  I  found  a  letter  from  my  cousin 
bewailing  his  loss.  He  implored  me,  if  I  knew  nothing 
about  it,  not  to  tell  it  to  a  human  soul.  There  was  a  M. 
Duclaux  in  Marseilles,  with  whom  we  had  had  our  business 
dealings,  and  from  him  Sam  had  borrowed  what  he  needed. 
I  at  once  requested  Captain  Olive,  of  the  steamer,  to  convey 
the  purse  and  its  contents  to  M.  Duclaux,  which  I  suppose 
was  done  secundem  ordinem. 

Poor  Sam !     I  never  met  him  again.     He  died  of  con- 


122 


MEMOIRS. 


sumption  soon  after  returning  home.  He  was  one  of  whom 
I  can  say  with  truth  that  I  never  saw  in  him  a  fault,  however 
trifling.  He  was  honour  itself  in  everything,  as  humane  as 
was  his  grandfather  before  him,  ever  cheerful  and  kind, 
merry  and  quaint. 

The  programme  of  the  steamboat  declared  that  meals 
were  included  in  the  fare,  "  except  while  stopping  at  a  port." 
But  we  stopped  every  day  at  Genoa  or  Leghorn,  or  some 
where,  and  stayed  about  fifteen  hours,  and  as  almost  every 
passenger  fell  sea-sick  after  going  ashore,  the  meals  were  not 
many.  On  board  the  first  day,  I  made  the  acquaintance  of 
Mr.  James  Temple  Bowdoin,  of  Boston,  and  Mr.  Mosely,  of 
whom  I  had  often  hc^rd  as  editor  of  the  Richmond  Whig. 
Mr.  Bowdoin  was  a  nephew  of  Lady  Temple,  and  otherwise 
widely  connected  with  English  families.  He  is  now  living 
(1892),  and  I  have  seen  a  great  deal  of  him  of  late  years. 
With  these  two  I  joined  company,  and  travelled  with  them 
over  Italy.  Both  were  much  older  than  I,  and  experienced 
men  of  the  world  ;  therefore  I  was  in  good  hands,  and  better 
guides,  philosophers,  mentors,  pilots,  and  friends  I  could 
hardly  have  found.  Left  to  myself,  I  should  probably  ere 
the  winter  was  over  have  been  the  beloved  chief  of  a  gang  of 
gypsies,  or  brigands,  or  witches,  or  careering  the  wild  sea- 
wave  as  a  daring  smuggler,  all  in  innocence  and  goodness  of 
heart ;  for  truly  in  Marseilles  I  had  begun  to  put  forth  buds 
of  such  strange  kind  and  promise  as  no  friend  of  mine  ever 
dreamed  of.  As  it  was,  I  got  into  better,  if  less  picturesque, 
society. 

We  came  to  Naples,  and  went  to  a  hotel,  and  visited 
everything.  In  those  days  the  beggars  and  pimps  and  pick 
pockets  were  beyond  all  modern  conception.  The  pictur- 
esqueness  of  the  place  and  people  were  only  equalled  by  the 
stinks.  It  was  like  a  modern  realistic  novel.  We  went  a 
great  deal  to  the  opera,  also  to  the  Blue  Grotto  of  Capri,  and 
ascended  Mount  Vesuvius,  and  sought  Baia?,  and  made,  in 
fact,  all  the  excursions.  As  there  were  three,  and  sometimes 


STUDENT  LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE.        123 

half-a-dozen  of  our  friends  on  these  trips,  we  had,  naturally, 
with  us  quite  a  cortege.  Among  these  was  an  ill-favoured 
rascal  called  "  John,"  who  always  received  a  dollar  a  day. 
One  evening  some  one  raised  the  question  as  to  what  the 
devil  it  was  that  John  did.  lie  did  not  carry  anything,  or 
work  to  any  account,  or  guide,  or  inform,  yet  he  was  always 
there,  and  always  in  the  way.  So  John,  being  called  up,  was 
asked  what  he  did.  Great  was  his  indignation,  for  by  this 
time  he  had  got  to  consider  himself  indispensable.  He  de 
clared  that  he  "  directed,  and  made  himself  generally  useful." 
We  informed  him  that  we  would  do  our  own  directing,  and 
regarded  him  as  generally  useless.  So  John  was  discarded. 
Since  then  I  have  found  that  "  John  "  is  a  very  frequent  in 
gredient  in  all  societies  and  Government  offices.  There  are 
Johns  in  Parliament,  in  the  army,  and  in  the  Church.  His 
children  are  pensioned  into  the  third  and  fourth  and  fortieth 
generation.  In  fact,  I  am  not  sure  that  John  is  not  the 
great  social  question  of  the  age. 

There  was  in  Philadelphia  an  Academy  of  Fine  Arts,  or 
Gallery,  of  which  my  father  had  generously  presented  me 
with  two  shares,  which  gave  me  free  entrance.  There  were 
in  it  many  really  excellent  pictures,  even  a  first-class  Murillo, 
besides  Wests  and  Allstons.  Unto  this  I  had,  as  was  my 
wont,  read  up  closely,  and  reflected  much  on  what  I  read,  so 
that  I  was  to  a  certain  degree  prepared  for  the  marvels  of  art 
which  burst  on  me  in  Naples.  And  if  I  was,  and  always  have 
been,  rather  insensible  to  the  merits  of  Eenaissance  sculpture 
and  architecture,  I  was  not  so  to  its  painting,  and  not  at  all 
blind  to  the  unsurpassed  glories  of  its  classic  prototypes. 
Professor  Dodd  had  indeed  impressed  it  deeply  and  specially 
on  my  mind  that  the  revival  of  a  really  pure  Greek  taste  in 
England,  or  from  the  work  of  Stewart  and  Eevett,  was  con 
temporary  with  that  for  Gothic  architecture,  and  that  the 
appreciation  of  one,  if  true,  implies  that  of  the  other.  As  I 
was  now  fully  inspired  with  my  new  resolution  to  become  an 
architect,  I  read  all  that  I  could  get  on  the  subject,  and 


124  MEMOIRS. 

naturally  examined  all  remains  of  the  past  far  more  closely 
and  critically  than  I  should  otherwise  have  done.  And  this 
again  inspired  in  me  (who  always  had  a  mania  for  bric-a-brac 
and  antiquity,  which  is  certainly  hereditary)  a  great  interest 
in  the  characteristic  decoration  of  different  ages,  which  thing 
is  the  soul  and  life  of  all  esthetic  archaeology  and  the  minor 
arts ;  which  latter  again  I  truly  claim  to  have  brought,  I  may 
say,  into  scientific  form  and  made  a  branch  of  education  in 
after  years. 

I  think  that  we  were  a  month  in  Naples.  I  kept  a 
journal  then,  and  indeed  everywhere  for  three  years  after. 
The  reader  may  be  thankful  that  I  have  it  not,  for  I  foresee 
that  I  shall  easily  recall  enough  to  fill  ten  folios  of  a  thou 
sand  pages  solid  brevier  each,  at  this  rate  of  reminiscences. 
As  my  predilection  for  everything  German  and  Gothic  came 
out  more  strongly  every  day,  Mr.  Mosely  called  me  familiarly 
Germanicus,  a  name  which  was  indeed  not  ill-bestowed  at 
that  period. 

From  Naples  we  went  to  Rome  by  vettura,  or  in  car 
riages.  We  were  two  days  and  two  nights  on  the  route.  I 
remember  that  when  we  entered  Rome,  I  saw  the  douanier 
who  examined  my  trunk  remove  from  it,  as  he  thought  un- 
perceived,  a  hair-brush,  book,  &c.,  and  slyly  hide  them  behind 
another  trunk.  I  calmly  walked  round,  retook  and  replaced 
them  in  my  trunk,  to  the  discomfiture,  but  not  in  the  least  to 
the  shame,  of  the  thief,  who  only  grinned. 

And  here  I  may  say,  once  for  all,  that  one  can  hardly 
fail  to  have  a  mean  opinion  of  human  common-sense  in  gov 
ernment,  when  we  see  this  system  of  examining  luggage  still 
maintained.  For  all  that  any  country  could  possibly  lose  by 
smuggling  in  trunks,  &c.,  would  be  a  hundred-fold  recom 
pensed  by  the  increased  amount  of  travel  and  money  im 
ported,  should  it  be  done  away  with,  as  has  been  perfectly 
and  fully  proved  in  France ;  the  announcement  a  year  ago 
that  examination  would  be  null  or  formal  having  had  at  once 
the  effect  of  greatly  increasing  travel.  And  as  there  is  not  a 


STUDENT  LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE.        125 

custom-house  in  all  Europe  where  a  man  who  knows  the 
trick  cannot  pull  through  his  luggage  by  bribery — the  excep 
tions  being  miraculously  rare — the  absurdity  and  folly  of  the 
system  is  apparent. 

We  went  to  the  Hotel  d'Allemagne,  where  I  fell  ill,  either 
because  I  had  a  touch  of  Neapolitan  malaria  in  me  (in  those 
days  the  stench  of  the  city  was  perceptible  three  miles  out  at 
sea,  and  might  have  risen  unto  heaven  above  and  been  smelt 
by  the  angels,  had  they  and  their  home  been  as  near  to  earth 
as  was  believed  by  the  schoolmen),  or  because  the  journey 
had  been  too  much  for  me.  However,  an  English  physician 
set  me  up  all  right  in  two  or  three  days  (he  wanted  to  sell  us 
pictures  which  would  have  cured  any  one — of  a  love  of  art), 
and  then  there  began  indeed  a  glorious  scampering  and  in 
vestigating,  rooting  and  rummaging — 

"  'Mid  deathless  lairs  in  solemn  Rome." 

Galleries  and  gardens,  ruins  and  palaces,  Colosseum  and 
temples,  churches  and  museums — ye  have  had  many  a  better 
informed  and  many  a  more  inspired  or  gifted  visitor  than  I, 
but  whether  from  your  first  Sabine  days  you  ever  had  a  hap 
pier  one,  or  one  who  enjoyed  you  more  with  the  simple  en 
joyment  of  youth  and  hope  gratified,  I  doubt.  Sometimes 
among  moss-grown^  arches  on  a  sunny  day,  as  the  verd-an- 
tique  lizards  darted  over  the  stones  from  dark  to  light,  while 
far  in  the  distance  tinkled  bells,  either  from  cows  or  con 
vents,  and  all  was  calm  and  sweet,  I  have  often  wondered  if 
it  could  indeed  be  real  and  not  a  dream.  Life  often  seemed 
to  me  then  to  be  too  good  to  be  true.  And  there  was  this  at 
least  good  in  my  Transcendentalism  and  Poly-Pantheism, 
that  it  quite  unconsciously  or  silently  gave  me  many  such 
hours ;  for  it  had  sunk  so  deeply  into  my  soul,  and  was  so 
much  a  real  part  thereof,  that  it  inspired  me  when  I  never 
thought  of  it,  in  which  I  differed  by  a  heaven's  width  from 
the  professional  Yankee  Transcendentalists,  Presbyterians, 
Methodists,  Esthetes,  and  other  spiritualists  or  sorcerers, 


126  MEMOIRS. 

who  always  kept  their  blessed  belief,  as  a  holy  fugleman,  full 
in  sight,  to  give  them  sacred  straight  tips,  or  as  a  Star-span 
gled  Bannerman  who  waved  exceedingly,  while  my  spirit 
was  a  shy  fairy,  who  dwelt  far  down  in  the  depths  of  the  all 
too  green  sea  of  my  soul,  where  it  seemed  to  me  she  had  ever 
been,  or  ever  a  storm  had  raised  a  wave  on  the  surface.  An 
tiquely  verdant  green  I  was,  no  doubt.  And  even  to  this  day 
the  best  hours  of  my  life  are  when  I  hear  her  sweet  voice 
'mid  ivy  greens  or  ruins  grey,  in  wise  books,  hoar  traditions. 
Be  it  where  it  will,  it  is  that,  and  not  the  world  of  men  or 
books,  which  gives  the  charm. 

It  was  usual  for  all  who  drew  from  Torlonia's  bank  not 
less  than  £20  to  be  invited  to  his  soirees.  To  ensure  the 
expenses,  the  footman  who  brought  the  invitation  called  the 
day  after  for  not  less  than  Jive  francs.  But  the  entertain 
ment  was  well  worth  the  money,  and  more.  There  was  a 
good  supper — Thackeray  has  represented  a  character  in 
"  Vanity  Fair  "  as  devouring  it — and  much  amusement. 

Xow  I  had  written  my  name  Chas.,  which  being  mistaken 
for  Chev.,  I  in  due  time  received  an  invitation  addressed  to 
M.  le  Chevalier  Godfrey  de  Leland.  And  it  befell  that  I 
once  found  a  lost  decoration  of  the  Order  of  the  Golden 
Spur,  which  in  those  days  was  actually  sold  to  anybody  who 
asked  for  it  for  ten  pounds,  and  was  worth  "  nothing  to  no 
body."  This  caused  much  fun  among  my  friends,  and  from 
that  day  I  was  known  as  the  Chevalier  Germanicus,  or  the 
Knight  of  the  Golden  Spur,  to  which  I  assented  with  very 
good  grace  as  a  joke.  There  were  even  a  few  who  really 
believed  that  I  had  been  decorated,  though  I  never  wore  it, 
and  one  day  I  received  quite  a  severe  remonstrance  from  a 
very  patriotic  fellow-countryman  against  the  impropriety  of 
my  thus  risking  my  loss  of  citizenship.  Which  caused  me 
to  reflect  how  many  there  are  in  life  who  rise  to  such  "  hon 
ours,"  Heaven  only  knows  how,  in  a  back-stairs  way.  I  know 
in  London  a  very  great  man  of  science,  nemini  secundus, 
who  has  never  been  knighted,  although  the  tradesman  who 


STUDENT  LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE.        127 

makes  for  him  his  implements  and  instruments  has  received 
the  title  and  the  accolade.     Fie  at  justitia! 

I  saw  at  one  of  the  Torlonia  entertainments  a  marvel 
lously  beautiful  and  strange  thing,  of  which  I  had  read  an 
account  in  Mme.  de  Stael's  Corinne.  There  was  a  stage,  on 
which  appeared  a  young  girl,  plainly  dressed,  and  bearing  a 
simple  small  scarf.  She  did  not  speak  or  dance,  or  even  as 
sume  "artistic  positions";  what  she  did  was  far  more  strik 
ing  and  wonderful.  She  merely  sat  or  stood  or  reclined  in 
many  ways,  every  one  of  which  seemed  to  he  perfectly  natu 
ral  or  habitual,  and  all  of  which  were  incredibly  graceful.  I 
have  forgotten  how  such  women  were  called  in  Italy.  I  am 
sure  that  this  one  had  never  been  trained  to  it,  for  the 
absolute  ease  and  naturalness  with  which  she  sat  or  stood 
could  never  have  been  taught.  If  it  coiild,  every  woman  in 
the  world  would  learn  it.  Ristori  was  one  of  these  instinct 
ive  Graces,  and  it  constituted  nearly  all  the  art  there  was  in 
her. 

This  was  in  184G.  The  Carnival  of  that  year  in  Rome 
was  the  last  real  one  which  Italy  ever  beheld.  It  was  the 
very  last,  for  which  every  soul  saved  up  all  his  money  for 
months,  in  order  to  make  a  wild  display,  and  dance  and 
revel  and  indulge  in 

"  Eating,  drinking,  masking, 
And  other  things  which  could  be  had  for  asking." 

Then  all  Rome  ran  mad,  and  rode  in  carriages  full  of 
flowers,  or  carts,  or  wheelbarrows,  or  triumphal  chariots,  or 
on  camels,  horses,  asses,  or  rails — rfimporte  quoi — and  merri 
ly  cast  confetti  of  flour  or  lime  at  one  another  laughing, 
while  grave  English  tourists  on  balconies  laboriously  poured 
the  same  by  the  peck  from  tin  scoops  on  the  heads  of  the 
multitude,  under  the  delusion  that  they  too  were  enjoying 
themselves  and  "  doing  "  the  Carnival  properly.  It  was  the 
one  great  rule  among  Italians  that  no  man  should  in  the 
Carnival,  under  any  provocation  whatever,  lose  his  temper. 
And  here  John  Bull  often  tripped  up.  On  the  last  night  of 


123  MEMOIRS. 

the  last  Carnival — that  great  night — there  was  the  Senza 
Moccolo  or  extinguishment  of  lights,  in  which  everybody 
bore  a  burning  taper,  and  tried  to  blow  or  knock  out  the 
light  of  his  neighbour.  Xow,  being  tall,  I  held  my  taper 
high  with  one  hand,  well  out  of  danger,  while  with  a  broad 
felt  hat  in  the  other  I  extinguished  the  children  of  light  like 
a  priest.  I  threw  myself  into  all  the  roaring  fun  like  a  wild 
boy,  as  I  was,  and  was  never  so  jolly.  Observing  a  pretty 
young  English  lady  in  an  open  carriage,  I  thrice  extin 
guished  her  light,  at  which  she  laughed,  but  at  which  her 
brother  or  beau  did  not,  for  he  got  into  a  great  rage,  even 
the  first  time,  and  bade  me  begone.  Whereupon  I  promptly 
renewed  the  attack,  and  then  repeated  it,  "  according  to  the 
rules  of  the  game,"  whereat  he  began  to  curse  and  swear, 
when  I,  in  the  Italian  fashion  of  rebuke  (to  the  delight  of 
sundry  Italians),  pointed  my  finger  at  him  and  hissed ; 
which  constituted  the  winning  point  cThonneur  in  the  game. 

There,  too,  was  the  race  of  wild  horses,  right  down 
through  the  Corso  or  Condotti,  well  worth  seeing,  and  very 
exciting,  and  game  suppers  o'nights  after  the  opera,  and  the 
meeting  with  many  swells  and  noted  folk,  and  now  it  all 
seems  like  some  memory  of  a  wild  phantasmagoria  or  hur 
ried  magic-lantern  show — galleries  and  ruins  by  day,  and 
gaiety  by  night.  Even  so  do  all  the  scenes  of  life  roll  up 
together  at  its  end,  often  getting  mixed. 

Yet  another  Roman  memory  or  two.  We  had  taken 
lodgings  in  the  Via  Condotti,  where  we  had  a  nice  sitting- 
room  in  common  and  a  good  coal-fire.  Our  landlady  was 
lady-like  and  spoke  French,  and  had  long  been  a  governess 
in  the  great  Borghese  family.  As  for  her  husband,  there 
were  thousands  of  Liberals  far  and  wide  who  spoke  of  him 
as  the  greatest  scoundrel  unhung,  for  he  was  at  the  head  of 
the  Roman  police,  and  I  verily  believe  knew  more  iniquity 
than  the  Pope  himself.  It  would  have  been  against  all  na 
ture  and  precedent  if  I  had  not  become  his  dear  friend  and 
protege,  which  I  did  accordingly,  for  I  liked  him  very  much 


STUDENT   LIFE  AND  TRAVEL   IN   EUROPE.        129 

indeed,  and  Heaven  knows  that  such  a  rum  couple  of  friends 
as  Giuseppe  Xavone  and  myself,  when  out  walking  together, 
could  not  at  that  time  have  been  found  in  Europe. 

It  may  here  be  observed  that  I  was  decidedly  getting  on 
in  the  quality  of  my  Mentors,  for,  as  regarded  morals  and 
humanity,  my  old  pirate  and  slaver  friend  was  truly  as  a 
lamb  and  an  angel  of  light  compared  to  Navone.  And  I 
will  further  indicate,  as  this  book  will  prove,  that  if  I  was 
not  at  the  age  of  twenty-three  the  most  accomplished  young 
scoundrel  in  all  Europe,  it  was  not  for  want  of  such  magnifi 
cent  opportunities  and  friends  as  few  men  ever  enjoyed.  But 
it  was  always  my  fate  to  neglect  or  to  be  unable  to  profit  by 
advantages,  as,  for  instance,  in  mathematics ;  nor  in  dishon 
esty  did  I  succeed  one  whit  better,  which  may  be  the  reason 
why  the  two  are  somehow  dimly  connected  in  my  mind. 
Here  I  think  I  see  the  unfathomable  smile  in  the  eye  of 
Professor  Dodd  (it  never  got  down  to  his  lips),  who  was  the 
incarnate  soul  of  purity  and  honour.  But  then  the  banker, 
E.  Fenzi,  who  swindled  me  out  of  nearly  500  francs,  was  an 
arithmetician,  and  I  write  under  a  sense  of  recent  wrong. 
How  this  loss,  and  Fenzi's  failure,  flight,  and  the  fuss  which 
it  all  caused  in  Florence,  were  accurately  foretold  me  by  a 
witch,  may  be  read  in  detail  in  my  "  Etrusco-Roman  Re 
mains  in  Tuscan  Tradition."  London  :  T.  Fisher  Unwin. 

My  landlady  was  a  very  zealous  Catholic,  and  tried  to  con 
vert  me.  This  was  a  new  experience,  and  I  enjoyed  it.  I 
proved  malleable.  So  she  called  in  a  Jesuit  priest  to  perfect 
the  work.  I  listened  with  deep  interest  to  his  worn-out  fade 
arguments,  made  a  few  points  of  feeble  objection  for  form's 
sake,  yielded,  and  met  him  more  than  half  way.  But  some 
how  he  never  called  again.  Latet  anguis  in  herba — my 
grass  was  rather  too  green,  I  suppose.  I  was  rather  sorry, 
for  I  expected  some  amusement.  But  I  had  been  too  deep 
for  the  Jesuit — and  for  myself. 

The  time  came  for  my  departure.  I  was  to  go  alone  on 
to  Florence,  in  advance  of  my  friends.  Navone  arranged 


130  MEMOIRS. 

everything  nicely  for  me :  I  was  to  go  by  diligence  on  to 
Civita  Vecchia,  where  I  was  to  call  on  a  relative  of  his,  who 
kept  a  bric-a-brac  shop.  I  did  not  know  how  or  why  it  was 
that  I  was  treated  with  such  great  respect,  as  if  with  fear,  by 
the  conductor,  and  by  all  on  the  road.  I  was  en  route  all 
night,  and  in  the  morning,  very  weary,  I  went  to  a  hotel, 
called  a  commissionaire,  and  bade  him  get  my  passport  from 
the  police,  and  have  it  visee,  and  secure  me  a  passage  on  the 
boat  to  Leghorn.  He  returned  very  soon,  and  said  with  an 
air  of  bewilderment,  "  Signore,  you  sent  me  on  a  useless 
errand.  Here  is  your  passport  put  all  en  regie,  and  your  pas 
sage  is  all  secured  ! " 

I  saw  it  at  once.  The  kind  fatherly  care  of  the  great 
and  good  Navone  had  done  it  all !  He  had  watched  over  me 
invisibly  and  mysteriously  all  the  time  during  the  night ;  on 
the  road  I  was  a  pet  child  of  the  Eoman  police  !  The  Vchm- 
gericht  had  endorsed  me  with  three  crosses !  Therefore  the 
passport  and  the  passage  were  all  right,  and  the  captain  was 
very  deferential,  and  I  got  to  Florence  safely. 

In  Florence  I  went  to  the  first  hotel,  which  was  then  in 
what  is  now  known  as  the  Palazzo  Feroni,  or  Viesseux's,  the 
great  circulating  library  of  Italy.  It  is  a  fine  machicolated 
building,  which  was  in  the  Middle  Ages  the  prison  of  the 
Republic.  From  my  window  I  had  a  fine  view  of  the  Via 
Tornabuoni — in  which  I  had  coffee  since  I  concluded  the 
last  line.  There  were  but  three  or  four  persons  the  first 
evening  at  the  table-cTMte.  One  was  a  very  beautiful  Polish 
countess,  who  spoke  French  perfectly.  She  was  very  fascinat 
ing,  and,  when  she  ate  a  salad,  smeared  her  lovely  mouth  and 
cheeks  all  round  with  oil  to  her  ears.  Some  one  said  some 
thing  to  her  about  the  manner  in  which  the  serfs  were 
treated  in  Poland,  whereupon  she  replied  with  great  vivacity 
that  the  Polish  serfs  were  even  more  degraded  and  barbarous 
than  those  of  Russia.  Which  remark  inspired  in  me  certain 
reflections,  which  were  amply  developed  in  after  years  by  the 
perusal  of  Von  Moltke's  work  on  Poland,  and  more  recently 


STUDENT  LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE.        131 

of  that  very  interesting  novel  called  "  The  Deluge."  If  free 
dom  shrieked  when  Kosciusko  fell,  it  was  probably,  from  a 
humanitarian  point  of  view,  with  joy. 

There  was,  however,  at  the  same  hotel  a  singular  man,  a 
Lithuanian  Pole  named  Andrekovitch,  with  whom  I  became 
very  intimate,  and  whom  I  met  in  after  years  in  Paris  and  in 
America.  He  had  been  at  a  German  university,  where  he 
had  imbibed  most  liberal  and  revolutionary  ideas.  lie  subse 
quently  took  part  in  one  or  two  revolutions,  and  was  exiled, 
lie  had  read  about  Emerson  in  a  French  magazine,  and  was 
enthusiastic  over  him.  In  strange  contrast  to  him  was  a 
handsome  young  man  from  the  Italian  Tyrol,  who  was,  like 
the  Pole  and  myself,  full  of  literary  longings,  but  who  was 
still  quite  a  Eoman  Catholic.  He  knew  about  as  much,  or  as 
little,  of  the  world  as  I  did,  and  was  "gentle  and  bland." 
AVhen  we  bade  farewell,  he  wept,  and  kissed  me.  Andreko 
vitch  was  eccentric,  wild,  and  Slavonian-odd  to  look  at  at  any 
time.  One  evening  he  came  into  my  room  clad  in  scarlet 
dressing-gown,  and  having  altogether  the  appearance  of  a 
sorcerer  just  out  of  a  Sabbat.  The  conversation  took  a  theo 
logical  turn.  Andrekovitch  was  the  ragged  remnant  of  a 
Catholic,  but  a  very  small  one.  He  sailed  close  to  the  wind, 
and  neared  Rationalism. 

"  But  the  Pope  !  .  .  ."  exclaimed  the  Tyrolese. 

Andrekovitch  rose,  looking  more  sorcerer  or  Zamiel-like 
than  ever,  and  exclaiming,  "  The  Pope  be  -  — ! "  left  the 
room.  The  last  word  was  lost  in  the  slam  of  the  door.  It 
was  a  melodramatic  departure,  and  as  such  has  ever  been  im 
pressed  on  my  memory. 

My  father,  while  a  merchant,  and  also  my  uncle,  had  done 
a  very  large  business  in  Florentine  straw  goods,  and  I  had 
received  letters  to  several  English  houses  who  had  corre 
sponded  with  them.  I  heard,  long  after,  that  my  arrival  had 
caused  a  small  panic  in  Florence  in  business  circles,  it  being 
apprehended  that  I  had  come  out  to  establish  a  rival  branch, 
or  to  buy  at  head-quarters  for  the  American  "  straw-market." 


132  MEMOIRS. 

I  believe  that  their  fears  were  appeased  when  I  interviewed 
them.  One  of  these  worthy  men  had  been  so  long  in  Italy 
that  he  had  caught  a  little  of  its  superstition.  He  wished  to 
invest  in  lottery  tickets,  and  asked  me  for  lucky  numbers, 
which  I  gave  him. 

As  I  write  these  lines  in  Florence,  I  have  within  half-an- 
hour  called  for  the  first  time  on  an  old  witch  or  strega,  whom 
I  found  surrounded  by  herbs  and  bottles,  and  a  magnificent 
cat,  who  fixed  his  eyes  on  me  all  the  time,  as  if  he  recognised 
a  friend.  I  found,  however,  that  she  only  knew  the  common 
vulgar  sorceries,  and  was  unable  to  give  me  any  of  the  higher 
scongiurazioni QT  conjurations ;  and  as  I  left,  the  old  sorceress 
said  respectfully  and  admiringly,  "  You  come  to  me  to  learn, 
0  Maestro,  but  it  is  fitter  that  I  take  lessons  from  you ! " 
Then  she  asked  me  for  "  the  wizard  blessing,"  which  I  gave 
her  in  Romany.  So  my  first  and  last  experiences  in  the  deep 
and  dark  art  come  together ! 

I  became  acquainted  in  Florence  with  Hi  ram  Powers, 
which  reminds  me  that  I  once  in  Rome  dined  vis-a-vis  to 
Gibson  and  several  other  artists,  with  whom  I  became  inti 
mate  as  young  men  readily  do.  I  contrived  to  study  archi 
tecture,  and  made  myself  very  much  at  horiie  in  a  few  studios. 
The  magnificent  Fiorara,  or  flower-girl,  whom  so  many  will 
remember  for  many  years,  was  then  in  the  full  bloom  of  her 
beauty.  She  and  others  gave  flowers  to  any  strangers  whom 
they  met,  not  expecting  money  down,  but  when  a  man  de 
parted  the  flower-girls  were  always  on  hand  to  solicit  a  gratu 
ity.  Twenty  years  later  this  same  Fiorara,  still  a  very  hand 
some  woman,  remembered  me,  and  gave  my  wife  a  handsome 
bouquet  on  leaving. 

I  studied  Provencal  and  Italian  poetry  in  illuminated 
MSS.  in  the  Ambrosian  or  Laurentian  Library,  and  took  my 
coffee  at  Doney's,  and  saw  more  of  Florence  in  a  few  weeks' 
time  than  I  have  ever  done  since  in  any  one  of  my  residences 
here,  though  some  of  them  have  been  for  six  and  nine  months. 
As  is  quite  natural.  Who  that  lives  in  London  ever  goes  to 


STUDENT  LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE.        133 

see  the  Tower?  All  things  in  Europe  were  so  new  and  fresh 
and  beautiful  and  wonderful  to  me  then,  and  I  had  been 
yearning  for  them  so  earnestly  for  so  many  years,  and  this 
golden  freedom  followed  so  closely  on  the  deadly  ennui  of 
Princeton,  that  I  could  never  see  enough. 

If  any  of  my  readers  want  to  know  something  of  sorcery, 
I  can  tell  them  that  among  its  humblest  professors  it  is  per 
fectly  understood  that  pleasure  or  enjoyment  is  one  of  its 
deepest  mysteries  or  principles,  as  an  integral  part  of  fascina 
tion.  So  I  can  feel  an  enchantment,  sometimes  almost  in 
credible,  in  gazing  on  a  Gothic  ruin  in  sunshine,  or  a  beautiful 
face,  a  picture  by  Carpaccio,  Norse  interlaces,  lovable  old  books, 
my  amethyst  amulet,  or  a  garden.  For  if  you  could  sway 
life  and  death,  and  own  millions,  or  walk  invisible,  you  could 
do  no  more  than  enjoy  ;  therefore  you  had  better  learn-  to  en 
joy  much  Avithout  such  power.  Thus  endeth  the  first  lesson  ! 

I  arrived  in  Venice.  There  had  been  a  time  in  America 
when,  if  I  could  have  truthfully  declared  that  I  had  ever 
been  in  a  gondola,  I  should  have  felt  as  if  I  held  a  diploma 
of  nobility  in  the  Grand  Order  of  Cosmopolites.  Having 
been  conveyed  in  one  to  my  hotel  on  the  Grand  Canal,  I  felt 
that  I  at  last  held  it !  Now  I  had  really  mastered  the  three 
great  cities  of  Italy,  which  was  the  first  and  greatest  part  of 
all  travel  in  all  the  world  of  culture  and  of  art.  Fate  might 
hurl  me  back  to  America,  or  even  into  New  Jersey,  but  I  had 
"swum  in  a  gondola." 

I  very  soon  made  the  acquaintance  of  two  brothers  from 
New  York  named  Seymour,  somewhat  older  than  myself, 
and  men  of  reading  and  culture.  With  them  I  "  sight-saw  " 
the  city.  I  had  read  Venice  up  rather  closely  at  Princeton, 
and  had  formed  a  great  desire  to  go  on  the  Bridge  of  Sighs. 
For  some  reason  this  was  then  very  strictly  forbidden.  Our 
Consul,  who  was  an  enterprising  young  man,  told  me  that  he 
had  been  for  months  trying  to  effect  it  in  vain.  It  at  once 
became  apparent  to  me  as  a  piece  of  manifest  destiny  that  I 

must  do  it. 

7 


134  MEMOIRS. 

One  day  I  had  with  me  a  clever  fellow,  a  commissionaire 
or  guide,  and  consulted  him.  He  said,  "  I  think  it  may  be 
done.  You  look  like  an  Austrian,  and  may  be  taken  for  an 
officer.  Walk  boldly  into  the  chief's  office,  and  ask  for  the 
keys  of  the  bridge ;  only  show  a  little  cheek.  You  may  get 
them.  Give  the  chiefs  man  two  francs  when  you  come  out. 
At  the  worst,  he  can  only  refuse  to  give  them." 

It  was  indeed  a  very  cheeky  undertaking,  but  I  ventured 
on  it  with  the  calmness  of  innocence.  I  went  into  the  office, 
and  said,  "  The  keys  to  the  bridge,  if  you  please ! "  as  if  I 
were  in  an  official  hurry  on  State  business.  The  official 
stared,  and  said — 

"  Do  I  understand  that  you  formally  demand  the  keys  ?  " 
"  Ja  woJil,  certainly ;  at  once,  if  you  please  !  " 
They  were  handed  over  to  me,  and  I  saw  the  bridge  and 
gave  the  two  francs,  and  all  was  well.  But  it  gave  me  no  re 
nown  in  Venice,  for  the  Consul  and  all  my  friends  regarded 
it  as  a  fabulous  joke  of  mine,  inspired  by  poetic  genius.  But 
I  sometimes  think  that  the  official  who  yielded  up  the  keys, 
and  the  man  whom  he  sent  with  me,  and  perhaps  the  com 
missionaire,  all  had  a  put-up  job  of  it  among  them  on  those 
keys,  and  several  glasses  all  round  out  of  those  two  francs. 
Quien  sale?  Vive  la  bagatelle  ! 

We  went  on  an  excursion  to  Padua.  What  I  remember 
is,  that  what  impressed  me  most  was  a  placard  here  and  there 
announcing  that  a  work  on  Oken  had  just  appeared  !  This 
rather  startled  me.  Whether  it  was  for  or  against  the  great 
German  offshoot  from  Schelling,  it  proved  that  somebody  in 
Italy  had  actually  studied  him !  Eppure  si  muove,  I  thought. 
It  cannot  be  true  that — 

"  Padua !  the  lamp  of  learning 
In  thy  halls  no  more  is  burning." 

I  have  been  there  several  times  since.  All  that  I  now 
recall  is  that  the  hotel  was  not  very  good  the  last  time. 

I  met  in  Venice  a  young  New  Yorker  named  Clark,  who 


STUDENT  LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE.        135 

had  crossed  with  me  on  the  ship.  He  was  a  merry  compan 
ion.  Sailing  with  him  one  morning  in  a  gondola  along  the 
Grand  Canal,  we  saw  sitting  before  a  hotel  its  porter,  who 
was  an  unmistakable  American  man  of  full  colour.  Great 
was  Clark's  delight,  and  he  called  out,  "  I  say,  Buck  !  what 
the  devil  are  you  doing  here  ?  " 

With  a  delighted  grin,  the  man  and  brother  replied  in 
deep  Southern  accent — 

"  Dey  sets  me  hyar  fo'  a  bait  to  'tice  de  Americans  with." 

I  heard  subsequently  that  he  had  come  from  America 
with  his  mistress,  and  served  her  faithfully  till  there  came 
into  the  service  a  pretty  French  girl.  Great  was  the  anger 
of  the  owner  of  the  man  to  find  that  he  had  unmistakably 
"  enticed  "  the  maid.  To  which  he  replied  that  it  was  a  free 
country ;  that  he  had  married  the  damsel — she  was  his  wife ; 
and  so  the  pair  at  once  packed  up  and  departed. 

We  used  to  hear  a  great  deal  before  the  war  from  South 
erns  about  the  devotion  of  their  slaves,  but  there  were  a  great 
many  instances  in  which  the  fidelity  did  not  exactly  hold 
water.  There  was  an  old  Virginia  gentleman  who  owned 
one  of  these  faithful  creatures.  He  took  him  several  times 
to  the  North,  and  as  the  faithful  one  always  turned  a  deaf 
ear  to  the  Abolitionists,  and  resisted  every  temptation  to  de 
part,  and  refused  every  free-ticket  offered  for  a  journey  on 
"  the  underground  railway,"  and  went  back  to  Richmond,  he 
was  of  course  trusted  to  an  unlimited  extent.  When  the 
war  ended  he  was  freed.  Some  one  asked  him  one  day  how 
he  could  have  been  such  a  fool  as  to  remain  a  slave.  He 
replied — 

"  Kase  it  paid.  Dere's  nuffin  pays  like  being  a  dewoted 
darkey.'  De  las' time  I  went  Norf  wid  massa  I  made  'miff 
out  of  him  to  buy  myself  free  twice't  over." 

Doubtless  there  were  many  instances  of  "  pampered  and 
petted  "  household  servants  who  had  grown  up  in  families 
who  had  sense  to  know  that  they  could  never  live  free  in  the 
freezing  North  without  hard  work.  These  were  the  only 


136  MEMOIRS. 

devoted  ones  of  whom  I  ever  heard.  The  field-hands,  dis 
ciplined  by  the  lash,  and  liable  to  have  their  wives  or  chil 
dren  or  relatives  sold  from  them — as  happened  on  an  average 
once  at  least  in  a  life — were  all  to  a  man  quite  ready  to  for 
sake  "  ole  massa  "  and  "  dear  ole  missus,"  and  flee  unto  free 
dom.  And  what  a  vile  mean  wretch  any  man  must  be  who 
would  sacrifice  Ins  freedom  to  any  other  living  being,  be  it 
for  love  or  feudal  fidelity — and  what  a  villain  must  the  man 
be  who  would  accept  such  a  gift ! 

I  had  never  thought  much  of  this  subject  before  I  left 
home.  I  did  not  like  slavery,  nor  to  think  about  it.  But  in 
Europe  I  did  like  such  thought,  and  I  returned  fully  im 
pressed  with  the  belief  that  slavery  was,  as  Charles  Sumner 
said,  "the  sum  of  all  crimes."  In  which  summation  he 
showed  himself  indeed  a  "  sumner,"  as  it  was  called  of  yore. 
Which  cost  me  many  a  bitter  hour  and  much  sorrow,  for 
there  was  hardly  a  soul  whom  I  knew,  except  my  mother,  to 
whom  an  Abolitionist  was  not  simply  the  same  thing  as  a 
disgraceful,  discreditable  malefactor.  Even  my  father,  when 
angry  with  me  one  day,  could  think  of  nothing  bitterer  than 
to  tell  me  that  I  knew  I  was  an  Abolitionist.  I  kept  it  to 
myself,  but  the  reader  can  have  no  idea  of  what  I  was  made 
to  suffer  for  years  in  Philadelphia,  where  everything  South 
ern  was  exalted  and  worshipped  with  a  baseness  below  that 
of  the  blacks  themselves. 

For  all  of  which  in  after  years  I  had  full  and  complete 
recompense.  I  lived  to  see  the  young  ladies  who  were  ready 
to  kneel  before  any  man  who  owned  "  slii-aves,"  detest  the 
name  of  "  South,"  and  to  learn  that  their  fathers  and  friends 
were  battling  to  the  death  to  set  those  slaves  free.  I  lived  to 
see  the  roof  of  the  "  gentlemanly  planter,"  who  could  not  of 
yore  converse  a  minute  with  me  without  letting  me  know 
that  he  considered  himsejf  as  an  immeasurably  higher  being 
than  myself,  blaze  over  his  head  amid  yell  and  groan  and 
sabre-stroke — 

"  And  death-shots  flying  thick  find  fast," 


STUDENT  LIFE  AND   TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE.        137 

while  he  fled  for  life,  and  the  freed  slaves  sang  hymns  of  joy 
to  God.  I  saw  the  roads,  five  miles  wide,  level,  barren,  and 
crossed  with  ruts,  where  Northern  and  Southern  armies 
had  marched,  and  where  villages  and  plantations  had  once 
been.  I  saw  countless  friends  or  acquaintances,  who  had  once 
smiled  with  pitying  scorn  at  me,  or  delicately  turned  the  con 
versation  when  Abolition  was  mentioned  in  my  presence,  be 
come  all  at  once  blatant  "  nigger-worshippers,"  abundant  in 
proof  that  they  had  always  had  "  an  indescribable  horror  of 
slavery  " — it  was,  in  fact,  so  indescribable  that  (until  it  was 
evident  that  the  North  would  conquer)  none  of  them  ever 
succeeded  in  giving  anybody  the  faintest  conception  of  it,  or 
any  idea  that  it  existed.  I  can  still  recall  how  gingerly  and 
cautiously — "  paw  by  paw  into  the  water  " — these  dough 
faces  became  hard-baked  Abolitionists,  far  surpassing  us  of 
the  Old  Guard  in  zeal.  I  lived  to  see  men  who  had  voted 
against  Grant  and  reviled  him  become  his  most  intimate 
friends.  But  enough  of  such  memories.  It  is  characteristic 
of  the  American  people  that,  while  personally  very  vindictive, 
they  forgive  and  forget  political  offences  far  more  amicably 
—very  far — than  do  even  the  English.  However,  in  the  case 
of  the  Rebellion,  this  was  a  very  easy  thing  for  those  to  do 
who  had  not,  like  us  old  Abolitionists,  borne  the  burden  and 
heat  of  the  day,  and  who,  coming  in  at  the  eleventh  hour, 
got  all  the  contracts  and  offices!  It  never  came  into  the 
head  of  any  man  to  write  a  Dictionnaire  des  Giroudtes  in 
America.  These  late  converts  had  never  known  what  it  was 
to  be  Abolitionists  while  it  was  "  unfashionable,"  and  have, 
as  it  were,  live  coals  laid  on  the  quivering  heart— as  I  had  a 
thousand  times  during  many  years — all  for  believing  the  tre 
mendous  and  plain  truth  that  slavery  was  a  thousand  times 
wickeder  than  the  breach  of  all  the  commandments  put  to 
gether.  It  was  so  peculiar  for  any  man,  not  a  Unitarian  or 
Quaker,  to  be  an  Abolitionist  in  Philadelphia  from  1848 
until  1861,  that  such  exceptions  were  pointed  out  as  if  they 
had  been  Chinese—"  and  d d  bad  Chinese  at  that,"  as  a 


138  MEMOIRS. 

friend  added  to  whom  I  made  the  remark.  So  much  for 
man's  relations  with  poor  humanity. 

My  old  friend,  B.  P.  Hunt,  was  one  of  these  few  excep 
tions.  His  was  a  very  strange  experience.  After  ceasing  to 
edit  a  "  selected "  magazine,  he  went  to  and  fro  for  many 
voyages  to  Haiti,  where,  singular  as  it  may  seem,  his  experi 
ences  of  the  blacks  made  of  him  a  stern  Abolitionist.  ]  To 
married  a  connection  of  mine,  and  lived  comfortably  in 
Philadelphia,  I  think,  until  the  eighties. 

I  travelled  with  Mr.  Clark  from  Venice  to  Milan,  where 
we  made  a  short  visit.  I  remember  an  old  soldier  who  spoke 
six  languages,  who  was  cicerone  of  the  roof  of  the  Cathedral, 
and  whom  I  found  still  on  the  roof  twenty  years  later,  and 
still  speaking  the  same  six  tongues.  I  admired  the  building 
as  a  beautiful  fancy,  exquisitely  decorated,  but  did  not  think 
much  of  it  as  a  specimen  of  Gothic  architecture.  It  is  the 
best  test  of  assthetic  culture  and  knowledge  in  the  world. 
When  you  hear  anybody  praise  it  as  the  most  exquisite  or 
perfect  Gothic  cathedral  in  existence,  you  may  expect  to  hear 
the  critic  admire  the  designs  of  Chippendale  furniture  or  the 
decoration  of  St.  Peter's. 

So  we  passed  through  beautiful  Lombardy  and  came  to 
Domo  d'Ossola,  where  a  strange  German-Italian  patois  was 
spoken.  It  was  in  the  middle  of  April,  and  we  were  warned 
that  it  would  be  very  dangerous  to  cross  the  Simplon,  but  we 
went  on  all  night  in  a  carriage  on  sleigh-runners,  through 
intervals  of  snowstorm.  Now  and  then  we  came  to  rushing 
mountain-torrents  bursting  over  the  road  ;  far  away,  ever  and 
anon,  we  heard  the  roar  of  a  lauwine  or  avalanche ;  some 
times  I  looked  out,  and  could  see  straight  down  below  me  a 
thousand  feet  into  an  abyss  or  on  a  headlong  stream.  We 
entered  the  great  tunnel  directly  from  another,  for  the  snow 
lay  twenty  feet  deep  on  the  road,  and  a  passage  had  been 
dug  under  it  for  several  hundred  feet,  and  so  two  tunnels 
were  connected.  Just  in  the  worst  of  the  road  beyond,  and 
in  the  bitterest  cold,  we  met  a  sleigh,  in  which  were  an  Eng- 


STUDENT  LIFE  AND  TEAVEL  IN  EUROPE.        139 

lish  gentleman  and  a  very  beautiful  young  lady,  apparently 
his  daughter,  going  to  Italy.  "  I  saw  her  but  an  instant,  yet 
methinks  I  see  her  now  " — a  sweet  picture  in  a  strange  scene. 
Poets  used  to  "  me-think  "  and  "  me-seem  "  more  in  those 
days,  but  we  endured  it.  Then  in  the  morning  we  saw 
Brieg,  far  down  below  us  in  the  valley  in  green  leaves  and 
sunshine,  and  when  we  got  there  then  I  realised  that  we 
were  in  a  new  land. 

We  had  a  great  giant  of  a  German  conductor,  who  seemed 
to  regard  Clark  and  me  as  under  his  special  care.  Once  when 
we  had  wandered  afar  to  look  at  something,  and  it  was  time 
for  the  stage  or  Eihvagen  to  depart,  he  hunted  us  up,  scolded 
us  "  like  a  Dutch  uncle  "  in  German,  and  drove  us  along  be 
fore  him  like  two  bad  boys  to  the  diligence,  "  pawing  up  " 
first  one  and  then  the  other,  after  which,  shoving  us  in,  he 
banged  and  locked  the  door  with  a  grunt  of  satisfaction,  even 
as  the  Giant  Blunderbore  locked  the  children  in  the  coffer 
after  slamming  down  the  lid.  Across  the  scenes  and  shades 
of  forty  years,  that  picture  of  the  old  conductor  driving  us 
like  two  unruly  urchins  back  to  school  rises,  never  to  be  for 
gotten. 

We  went  by  mountains  and  lakes  and  Gothic  towns,  rocks, 
forests,  old  chateaux,  and  rivers — the  road  was  wild  in  those 
days — till  we  came  to  Geneva.  Thence  Clark  went  his  way 
to  Paris,  and  I  remained  alone  for  a  week.  I  had,  it  is  true, 
a  letter  of  introduction  to  a  very  eminent  Presbyterian  Swiss 
clergyman,  so  I  sent  it  in  with  my  card.  His  wife  came  out 
on  the  balcony,  looked  coolly  down  at  me,  and  concluding,  I 
suppose  from  my  appearance,  that  I  was  one  of  the  ungodly, 
went  in  and  sent  out  word  that  her  husband  was  out,  and 
would  be  gone  for  an  indefinite  period,  and  that  she  was  en 
gaged.  The  commissionaire  who  was  with  me — poor  devil ! 
—was  dreadfully  mortified  ;  but  I  was  not  very  much  aston 
ished,  and,  indeed,  I  was  treated  in  much  the  same  manner, 
or  worse,  by  a  colleague  of  this  pious  man  in  Paris,  or  rather 
by  his  wife. 


140  MEMOIRS. 

I  believe  that  what  kept  me  a  week  in  Geneva  was  the 
white  wine  and  trout.  At  the  end  of  the  time  I  set  out  to 
the  north,  and  on  the  way  met  with  some  literary  or  profes 
sional  German,  who  commended  to  me  the  "  Pfisterer-Zunf  t " 
or  Bakers'  Guild  as  a  cheap  and  excellent  hostelry.  And  it 
was  curious  enough,  in  all  conscience.  During  the  Middle 
Ages,  and  down  to  a  very  recent  period,  the  Zilnfte  or  trade- 
guilds  iu  the  Swiss  cities  carried  it  with  a  high  hand.  Even 
the  gentlemen  could  only  obtain  rights  as  citizens  by  enroll 
ing  themselves  as  the  trade  of  aristocrats.  I  had  heard  of 
the  boy  who  thought  he  would  like  to  be  bound  apprentice 
to  the  king ;  in  Berne  he  might  have  been  entered  for  a 
lower  branch  of  the  business.  These  guilds  had  their  own 
local  taverns,  inns,  or  Herbergs,  where  travelling  colleagues 
of  the  calling  might  lodge  at  moderate  rates,  but  nobody  else. 
However,  as  time  rolled  by,  these  Zilnfte  or  guild-lodgings 
were  opened  to  strangers.  One  of  the  last  which  did  so  was 
that  of  the  Pfister  or  bakers  (Latin,  pistor),  and  this  had 
only  been  done  a  few  weeks  ere  I  went  there.  As  a  literary 
man  whom  I  met  on  the  ramparts  said  to  me,  "  That  place 
is  still  strong  in  the  Middle  Age."  It  was  a  quaint  old 
building,  and  to  get  to  my  room  I  had  to  cross  the  great 
guild-hall  of  the  Ancient  and  Honourable  Society  of  Bakers. 
There  were  the  portraits  of  all  the  Grand  Masters  of  the 
Order  from  the  fourteenth  or  fifteenth  century  on  the  walls, 
and  the  concentrated  antique  tobacco-smoke  of  as  many  ages 
in  the  air,  which,  to  a  Princeton  graduate,  was  no  more  than 
the  scent  of  a  rose  to  a  bee. 

I  could  speak  a  little  German — not  much — but  the  degree 
to  which  I  felt,  sympathised  with,  and  understood  everything 
Deutsch,  passcth  all  words  and  all  mortal  belief.  Sit  verbo 
venial  But  I  do  not  believe  that  any  human  being  ever 
crossed  the  frontier  who  had  thought  himself  down,  or  rather 
raised  himself  up,  into  Teutouism  as  I  had  on  so  slight  a 
knowledge  of  the  language,  even  as  a  spider  throweth  up  an 
invisible  thread  on  high,  and  then  travels  on  it.  Which 


STUDENT  LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE. 

thing  was  perceived  marvellously  soon,  and  not  without  some 
amazement,  by  the  Germans,  who  have  all  at  least  this  one 
point  in  common  with  Savages,  New  Jerseymen,  Red  Indians, 
Negroes,  Gypsies,  and  witches,  that  they  by  mystic  sympathy 
know  those  who  like  them,  and  take  to  them  accordingly, 
guided  by  some  altogether  inexplicable  clue  or  Hexengarn, 
even  as  deep  calleth  unto  deep  and  star  answereth  star  with 
out  a  voice.  Whence  it  was  soon  observed  at  Heidelberg  by 
an  American  student  that  "  Leland  would  abuse  the  Dutch 
all  day  long  if  he  saw  fit,  but  never  allowed  anybody  else  to 
do  so."  The  which  thing,  as  I  think,  argues  the  very  ne 
plus  ultra  of  sympathy. 

I  found  my  way  to  Strasburg,  where  I  went  to  the  tip-top 
outside  of  the  cathedral,  and  took  the  railway  train  for  Hei 
delberg.  And  here  I  had  an  adventure,  which,  though  trifling 
to  the  last  degree,  was  to  me  such  a  great  and  new  experience 
that  I  will  describe  it,  let  the  reader  think  what  he  will.  I 
went  naturally  enough  first-class,  so  uncommon  a  thing  then 
in  Germany  that  people  were  wont  to  say  that  only  princes, 
Englishmen,  and  asses  did  so.  There  entered  the  same  car- 
liage  a  very  lady-like  and  pretty  woman.  The  guard,  seeing 
this,  concluded  that — whatever  he  concluded,  he  carefully 
drew  down  all  the  curtains,  looking  at  me  with  a  cheerful, 
genial  air  of  intense  mystery,  as  if  to  say,  "  I  twig ;  it's  all 
right ;  I'll  keep  your  secret." 

It  is  a  positive  fact  that  all  this  puzzled  me  amazingly. 
There  were  many  things  in  which  I,  the  friend  and  pupil  of 
Navone,  was  as  yet  as  innocent  as  a  babe  unborn.  The  lady 
seemed  to  be  amused — as  well  she  might.  Sancta  simplici- 
tas !  I  asked  her  why  the  conductor  had  drawn  the  cur 
tains.  She  laughed,  and  explained  that  he  possibly  thought 
we  were  a  bridal  pair  or  lovers.  Common  sense  and  ordi 
nary  politeness  naturally  inspired  the  reply  that  I  wished  we 
were,  which  declaration  was  so  amiably  received  that  I  sug 
gested  the  immediate  institution  of  such  an  arrangement. 
Which  was  so  far  favourably  received  that  it  was  sealed  with 


1J.2  MEMOIRS. 

a  kiss.  However,  the  seal  was  not  broken.  I  think  the  lady 
must  have  been  very  much  amused..  It  is  not  without  due 
reflection  that  I  record  this.  Kissing  went  for  very  little  in 
Germany  in  those  days.  It  was  about  as  common  in  Vienna 
as  shaking  hands.  But  this  was  my  first  experience  in  it. 
So  I  record  it,  because  it  seems  as  if  some  benevolent  fairy 
had  welcomed  me  to  Germany;  it  took  place  just  as  we 
crossed  the  frontier.  However,  I  found  out  some  time  after, 
by  a  strange  accident,  that  my  fairy  was  the  wife  of  a  banker 
who  lived  beyond  Heidelberg ;  and  at  Heidelberg  I  left  her 
and  went  to  the  first  hotel  in  the  town. 

I  had  formed  no  plans,  and  had  no  letters  to  anybody.  I 
had  read  Howitt's  "  Student  Life  in  Germany  "  through  and 
through,  so  I  thought  I  would  study  in  Heidelberg.  But 
how  to  begin  ?  That  was  the  question.  I  went  into  a  shop 
and  bought  some  cigars.  There  I  consulted  with  the  shop 
keeper  as  to  what  I  should  do.  Could  he  refer  me  to  some 
leading  authority  in  the  University,  known  to  him,  who 
would  give  me  advice?  He  could,  and  advised  me  to  consult 
with  the  Pedell  Capelmann. 

Now  I  didn't  know  it,  but  Pedell — meaning  beadle,  com 
monly  called  Poodle  by  the  students — was  the  head-constable 
of  the  University.  In  honest  truth  I  supposed  he  must  be 
the  President  or  Pro-Rector.  So  I  went  to  Pedell  Capel 
mann.  His  appearance  did  not  quite  correspond  to  my  idea 
of  a  learned  professor.  He  was  an  immensely  burly,  good- 
natured  fellow,  who  came  in  in  his  shirt-sleeves,  and  who, 
when  he  learned  what  I  wanted,  burst  out  into  a  /ferVV 
Gottsdonncrwetter !  of  surprise,  as  he  well  might.  But  I 
knew  that  the  Germans  were  a  very  sans  fapon  bourgeois  peo 
ple,  and  still  treated  him  with  deep  respect.  He  suggested 
that,  as  there  were  a  great  many  American  students  there,  I 
had  better  call  on  them.  He  himself  would  take  me  to  see 

the  Herr  0 ,  with  whom,  as  I  subsequently  learned,  he 

had  more  than  once  had  discussions  relative  to  questions  of 
University-municipal  discipline.  As  for  the  startling  pecul- 


STUDENT  LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE. 

iarity  which  attended  my  introduction  to  University  life,  it  is 
best  summed  up  in  the  remark  which  the  Herr  0.  (of  Balti 
more)  subsequently  made. 

"  Great  God,  fellows !  he  made  his  first  call  on  old  Capel- 
mann ! !  " 

He  took  me  to  the  Herr  0.  and  introduced  me.  I  was 
overwhelmed  with  my  cordial  reception.  There  was  at  once 
news  sent  forth  that  a  new  man  and  a  brother  fellow-coun 
tryman  had  come  to  join  the  ranks.  "And  messengers 
through  all  the  land  sought  Sir  Tannhiiuser  out."  I  was 
pumped  dry  as  to  my  precedents,  and  as  I  came  fresh  from 
Princeton  and  had  been  through  Italy,  I  was  approved  of. 
The  first  thing  was  a  discussion  as  to  where  I  was  to  live. 
The  Frau  Directorinn  Louis  in  the  University  Place  had  two 
fine  rooms  which  had  just  been  occupied  by  a  prince.  So  we 
went  and  secured  the  rooms,  which  were  indeed  very  pleas 
ant,  and  by  no  means  dear  as  it  seemed  to  me.  I  was  to 
breakfast  in  my  rooms,  dine  with  the  family  at  one  o'clock, 
and  sup  about  towo. 

Then  there  was  a  grand  council  as  to  what  I  had  better 
study,  and  over  my  prospects  in  life ;  and  it  was  decided  that, 
as  the  law-students  were  the  most  distinguished  or  swell  of 
all,  I  had  better  be  a  lawyer.  So  it  was  arranged  that  I 
should  attend  Mittermayer's  and  others'  lectures ;  to  all  of 
which  I  cheerfully  assented.  The  next  step  was  to  give  a 
grand  supper  in  honour  of  my  arrival.  After  the  dinner  and 
the  wine,  I  drank  twelve  schoppens  of  beer,  and  then  excused 
myself  on  the  plea  of  having  letters  to  write.  I  believe,  how 
ever,  that  I  forgot  to  write  the  letters.  And  here  I  may  say, 
once  for  all,  that  having  discovered  that,  if  I  had  no  gift  for 
mathematics,  I  had  a  great  natural  talent  for  Kheinwein  and 
lager,  I  did  not  bury  that  talent  in  a  napkin,  but,  like  the 
rest  of  my  friends,  made  the  most  of  it,  firstly,  during  two 
semesters  in  Heidelberg  : 

"  Then  I  bolted  off  to  Munich, 
And  within  the  year, 


144  MEMOIRS. 

Underneath  my  German  tunic 

Stowed  whole  butts  of  beer ; 
For  I  drank  like  fifty  fishes, 

Drank  till  all  was  blue, 
For  whenever  I  was  vicious 

I  was  thirsty  too." 

The  result  of  which  "  dire  deboshing  "  was  that,  having 
come  to  Europe  with  a  soul  literally  attenuated  and  starved 
for  want  of  the  ordinary  gaiety  and  amusement  which  all 
youth  requires,  my  life  in  Princeton  having  been  one  con 
tinued  strain  of  a  sobriety  which  continually  sank  into  sub 
dued  melancholy,  and  a  body  just  ready  to  yield  to  con 
sumption,  I  grew  vigorous  and  healthy,  or,  as  the  saying  is, 
"  hearty  as  a  buck."  I  believe  that  if  my  Cousin  Sam  had 
gone  on  with  me  even-pace,  that  he  would  have  lived  till  to 
day.  When  we  came  abroad  I  seemed  to  be  the  weakest ; 
he  returned,  and  died  in  a  few  months  from  our  hereditary 
disease.  How  many  hecatombs  of  young  men  have  been 
murdered  by  "  seriousness  "  and  "  total  abstinence,"  miscalled 
temperance,  in  our  American  colleges,  can  never  be  known  ; 
perhaps  it  is  as  well  that  it  never  will  be  ;  for  if  it  were,  there 
would  be  a  rush  to  the  other  extreme,  which  would  "  upset 
society."  And  here  be  it  noted  that,  with  all  our  inordinate 
national  or  international  Anglo-Saxon  sense  of  superiority  to 
everybody  and  everything  foreign,  we  are  in  the  main  thing 
— that  is,  the  truly  rational  enjoyment  of  life  and  the  art  of 
living — utterly  inferior  to  the  German  and  Latin  races.  We 
are  for  the  most  part  either  too  good  or  too  bad — totally  ab 
stemious  or  raving  drunk — always  in  a  hurry  after  excitement 
or  in  a  worry  over  our  sins,  or  those  of  our  neighbours.  "  Rest, 
rest,  perturbed  Yankee,  rest !  " 

My  rooms  were  on  the  ground-floor,  the  bedroom  looking 
into  the  University  Square  and  my  study  into  a  garden. 
Next  door  to  me  dwelt  Paulus,  the  king  of  the  Rationalists. 
He  was  then,  I  believe,  ninety-four  years  of  age.  He  re 
mained  daily  till  about  twelve  or  one  in  a  comatose  condition, 


STUDENT   LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE.        145 

when  he  awoke  and  became  lively  till  about  three,  when  he 
sank  into  sleep  again.  His  days  were  like  those  of  a  far 
Northern  winter,  lit  by  the  sun  at  the  same  hours. 

The  next  morning  a  very  gentlemanly  young  man  knocked 
at  my  door,  and  entered  and  asked  in  perfect  English  for  a 
Mr.  Bell,  who  lived  in  the  same  house.  I  informed  him  that 
Mr.  Bell  was  out,  but  asked  him  to  enter  my  room  and  take 
a  chair,  which  he  did,  conversing  with  me  for  half  an  hour, 
when  he  departed,  leaving  a  card  on  a  side-table.  In  a  few 
minutes  later,  0.,  who  was  of  the  kind  who  notice  everything, 
entered,  took  up  the  card,  and  read  on  it  the  name  and  ad 
dress  of  the  young  Grand  Duke  of  Baden,  who  was  naturally 
by  far  the  greatest  man  in  the  country,  he  being  its  heredi 
tary  ruler. 

"  Where  the  devil  did  you  get  this  ?  "  asked  0.,  and  all,  in 
amazement. 

"  Oh,"  I  replied,  "  it's  only  the  Duke.  He  has  just  been 
in  here  making  a  call.  If  you  fellows  had  come  five  minutes 
sooner  you'd  have  seen  him.  Have  some  beer  !  " 

The  impression  that  I  was  a  queer  lot,  due  to  my  making 
my  first  call  on  Capelmann  et  cetera,  was  somewhat  strength 
ened  by  this  card,  until  I  explained  how  I  came  by  it.  But 
as  Dr.  Johnson  in  other  words  remarked,  there  are  people  to 
whom  such  queer  things  happen  daily,  and  others  to  whom 
they  occur  once  a  year.  And  there  was  never  yet  a  living 
soul  who  entered  into  my  daily  life  who  did  not  observe  that 
I  belong  to  the  former  class.  If  I  have  a  guardian  angel,  it 
must  be  Edgar  A.  Poe's  Angel  of  the  Odd.  But  he  generally 
comes  to  those  who  belong  to  him  ! 

It  was  a  long  time  before  I  profited  much  by  my  lectures, 
because  it  was  fearful  work  for  me  to  learn  German.  I  en 
gaged  a  tutor,  and  worked  hard,  and  read  a  great  deal,  and 
talked  it  con  amore ;  but  few  persons  would  believe  how 
slowly  I  learned  it,  and  with  what  incredible  labour.  How 
often  have  I  cursed  up  hill  and  down  dale,  the  Tower  of 
Babel,  which  first  brought  the  curse  of  languages  upon  the 


14G  MEMOIRS. 

world !  And  what  did  I  ever  have  to  do  with  that  Tower  ? 
Had  I  lived  in  those  days,  I  would  never  have  laid  hand  to 
the  work  in  merry,  sunny,  lazy  Babylon,  nor  contributed  a 
brick  to  it.  By  the  way,  it  was  a  juvenile  conjecture  of  mine 
that  the  Tower  of  Babel  was  destroyed  for  being  a  shot-tower, 
in  which  ammunition  was  prepared  to  be  used  by  the  heathen. 
Which  theory  might  very  well  have  been  inspired  by  a  verse 
from  the  old  Puritanical  rendering  of  the  Psalms : — 

"  Ye  race  itt  is  not  alwayes  gott 
By  him  who  swiftest  runns, 
Nor  ye  Battell  by  y«  Peo-pel 
Who  shoot  with  longest  gunnes." 

Even  before  I  had  gone  to  Princeton  I  had  read  and 
learned  a  great  deal  relative  to  Justinus  Kerner,  the  great 
German  supernaturalist,  mystic,  and  poet,  firstly  from  a 
series  of  articles  in  the  Dublin  University  Magazine,  and 
later  from  a  translation  of  "  The  Seeress  of  Prevorst,"  and 
several  of  the  good  man's  own  romances  and  lyrics.  I  sup 
pose  that,  of  all  men  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  I  should  have 
at  that  time  preferred  to  meet  him.  Wherefore,  as  a  matter 
of  course,  it  occurred  that  one  fine  morning  a  pleasant  gentle 
manly  German  friend  of  mine,  who  spoke  English  perfectly, 
and  whose  name  was  Riicker,  walked  into  my  room,  and 
proposed  that  we  should  take  a  two  or  three  days'  walk  up 
the  Neckar  with  our  knapsacks,  and  visit  the  famous  old 
ruined  castle  of  the  Weibertreue.  My  mother  had  read  me 
the  ballad-legend  of  it  in  my  boyhood,  and  I  had  learned  it 
by  heart.  Indeed,  I  can  still  recall  it  after  sixty  years : — 

"  Who  can  tell  me  where  Weinsberg  lies  ? 

As  brave  a  town  as  any ; 
It  must  have  sheltered  in  its  time 

Brave  wives  and  maidens  many  : 
If  e'er  I  wooing  have  to  do, 
Good  faith,  in  Weinsberg  I  will  woo  !  " 

"  And  then,  when  we  are  there,"  said  Riicker,  "  we  will  call 


STUDENT  LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE.        147 

on  an  old  friend  of  my  father's,  named  Justinus  Kerner. 
Did  you  ever  hear  of  him  ?  " 

Did  a  Jew  ever  hear  of  Moses,  or  an  American  of  General 
Washington  ?  In  five  minutes  I  convinced  my  friend  that  I 
knew  more  about  Kerner  than  he  himself  did.  Whereupon  it 
svas  decided  that  we  should  set  forth  on  the  following  morning. 

Blessed,  beautiful,  happy  summer  mornings  in  Suabia — 
green  mounts  and  grey  rocks  with  old  castles — peasants  har 
vesting  hay — a  Kircliweili,  or  peasant's  merry-making,  with 
dancing  and  festivity — till  we  came  to  Weinsberg,  and  forth 
with  called  on  the  ancient  sage,  whom  we  found  with  the 
two  or  three  ladies  and  gentlemen  of  his  family.  I  saw  at  a 
glance  that  they  had  the  air  of  aristocracy.  He  received  us 
very  kindly,  and  invited  us  to  come  to  dinner  and  sup  with 
him. 

The  Weibertreue  is  an  old  castle  which  was  in  or  at  the 
end  of  Dr.  Kerner's  garden.  Once,  when  all  the  town  had 
taken  refuge  in  it  from  the  Emperor  Conrad,  the  latter  gave 
the  women  leave  to  quit  the  fort,  and  also  permission  to 
every  one  to  carry  with  her  whatever  was  unto  her  most  valu 
able,  precious,  or  esteemed.  And  so  the  dames  went  forth, 
every  one  bearing  on  her  back  her  husband. 

In  the  tower  of  the  castle,  or  in  its  wall,  which  was  six 
feet  thick,  were  eight  or  ten  windows,  gradually  opening  like 
trumpets,  through  which  the  wind  blew  all  the  time,  and 
pleasantly  enough  on  a  hot  summer  day.  In  each  of  these 
the  Doctor  had  placed  an  ^Eolian  harp,  and  he  who  did  not 
believe  in  fairies  or  the  gentle  spirit  of  a  viewless  sound 
should  have  sat  in  that  tower  and  listened  to  the  music  as  it 
rose  and  fell,  as  in  endless  solemn  glees  or  part-singing ;  one 
harp  stepping  in,  and  pealing  out  richly  and  strangely  as 
another  died  away,  while  anon,  even  as  the  new  voice  came, 
there  thrilled  in  unison  one  or  two  more  Ariels  who  seemed 
to  be  hurrying  up  to  join  the  song.  It  was  a  marvellous 
strange  thing  of  beauty,  which  resounded,  indeed,  all  over 
Germany,  for  men  spoke  of  it  far  and  wide. 


148  MEMOIRS. 

Quite  as  marvellous,  in  the  evening,  was  the  Doctor's  own 
performance  on  the  single  and  double  Jew's  harp.  From 
this  most  unpromising  instrument  he  drew  airs  of  such  ex 
quisite  beauty  that  one  could  not  have  been  more  astonished 
had  he  heard  the  sweet  tones  of  Grisi  drawn  from  a  cat  by 
twisting  its  tail.  But  we  were  in  a  land  of  marvels  and  won 
ders,  or,  as  an  English  writer  described  it,  "  Weinsberg,  a 
place  on  the  Neckar,  inhabited  partly  by  men  and  women — 
some  in  and  some  out  of  the  body — and  partly  by  ghosts." 
There  were  visions  in  the  air,  and  dreams  sitting  on  the  stair 
cases  ;  in  fact,  when  I  saw  the  peasants  working  in  the  fields, 
I  should  not  have  been  astonished  to  see  them  vanish  into 
mist  or  sink  into  the  ground. 

And  yet  from  the  ruined  castle  of  the  Weibertreue 
Kerner  pointed  out  to  us  a  man  walking  along  the  road,  and 
that  man  was  the  very  incarnation  of  all  that  was  sober, 
rational,  and  undream-like ;  for  it  was  David  Strauss,  author 
of  the  "  Life  of  Jesus."  And  at  him  too  I  gazed  with  the 
awe  due  to  a  great  man  whose  name  is  known  to  all  the  cul 
tured  world ;  and  to  me  much  more  than  the  name ;  for  I 
had  read,  as  before  mentioned,  his  "  Life  of  Jesus  "  when  I 
first  went  to  Princeton. 

Dr.  Kerner  took  to  me  greatly,  and  said  that  I  very  much 
reminded  him,  in  appearance  and  conversation,  of  what  his 
most  intimate  friend,  Ludwig  Uhland,  had  been  at  my  age ; 
and  as  he  repeated  this  several  times,  and  spoke  of  it  long 
after  to  friends,  I  think  it  must  have  been  true,  although  I 
am  compelled  to  admit  that  people  who  pride  themselves  on 
looking  like  this  or  that  celebrity  never  resemble  him  in  the 
least,  mentally  or  spiritually,  and  are  generally  only  mere 
caricatures  at  best. 

On  our  return  we  climbed  into  an  old  Gothic  church- 
tower,  in  which  I  found  a  fifteenth-century  bell,  bearing  the 
words,  Vivas  voco,  mortuos  plango,fulgura  frango,  and  much 
more — 

"  The  dead  I  knell,  the  living  wake, 
And  the  power  of  lightning  break  ! " 


STUDENT  LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE.        149 

which  caused  me  to  reflect  on  the  vast  degree  to  which  all 
the  minor  uses  and  observances  of  the  Church — which  are 
nine-tenths  of  all  their  religion  to  the  multitude — were  only 
old  heathen  superstitions  in  new  dresses.  The  bell  was  a 
spell  against  the  demons  of  lightning  in  old  Etrurian  days ; 
to  this  time  the  Tuscan  peasant  bears  one  in  the  darkening 
twilight-tide  to  drive  away  the  witches  flitting  round :  in  him 
and  them  "  those  evening  bells  "  inspired  a  deeper  sentiment 
than  poetry. 

In  a  village,  Riicker,  finding  the  beer  very  good,  bought 
a  cask  of  it,  which  was  put  on  board  the  little  Neckar  steam 
boat  on  which  we  returned  to  Heidelberg.  And  thus  pro 
vided,  the  next  evening  he  gave  a  "  barty "  up  in  the  old 
castle,  among  the  ruins  by  moonlight,  where  I  "  assisted," 
and  the  lager  was  devoured,  even  to  the  last  drop. 

I  soon  grew  tired  of  the  family  dinners  with  the  Frau 
Inspectorinn  and  the  Herr  Inspector  with  the  one  tumbler 
of  Xeckar  wine,  which  I  was  expected  not  to  exceed ;  so  I 
removed  my  dining  to  the  "  Court  of  Holland,"  a  first-class 
hotel,  where  0.  and  the  other  Americans  met,  and  where  the 
expectation  was  not  that  a  man  should  by  any  means  limit 
himself  to  one  glass,  but  that,  taking  at  least  one  to  begin 
with,  he  should  considerably  exceed  it.  This  hotel  was  kept 
by  a  man  named  Spitz,  who  looked  his  name  to  perfection. 

"  Er  spitzt  betrilbt  die  Nase," 

as  Scheffel  wrote  of  him  in  his  poem,  Numero  Adit,  the  scene 
of  which  is  laid  in  the  "  Court  of  Holland."  Here  a  word 
about  Scheffel.  During  the  following  semester  he  was  for 
months  a  daily  table-companion  of  mine  at  the  Bremer-Eck, 
where  a  small  circle  of  students — quorum  pars  fui — met 
every  evening  to  sup  and  kneip,  or  to  drink  beer  and  smoke 
and  sing  until  eleven.  Little  did  I  dream  in  those  days  that 
he  would  become  the  great  popular  poet  of  his  time,  or  that 
I  should  ever  translate  his  Gaudeamus.  I  owe  the  "  Court 
of  Holland  "  to  this  day  for  a  dinner  and  a  bottle  of  wine. 


150  MEMOIRS. 

It  is  the  only  debt  I  owe,  to  my  knowledge,  to  anybody  on 
earth. 

It  was  resolved  among  the  Americans  that  we  should  all 
make  a  foot-excursion  with  knapsacks  down  the  Rhine  to 
Cologne.  It  was  done.  So  we  went  gaily  from  town  to  town, 
visiting  everything,  making  excursions  inland  now  and  then. 
We  had  a  bottle  or  two  of  the  best  Johanuisberg  in  the  very 
Schloss  itself — omne  cum  prcetio — and  meeting  with  such 
adventures  as  befell  all  wandering  students  in  those  old- 
fashioned,  merry  times.  The  Rhine  was  wild  as  yet,  and  not 
paved,  swept,  garnished  and  full  of  modern  villas  and  adorn 
ment,  as  now.  I  had  made,  while  in  America,  a  manuscript 
book  of  the  places  and  legends  of  and  on  the  Rhine,  with 
many  drawings.  This,  and  a  small  volume  of  Snow's  and 
Blanche's  "  Legends  of  the  Rhine,"  I  carried  with  me.  I  was 
already  well  informed  as  to  every  village  and  old  ruin  or 
tower  on  the  banks. 

So  we  arrived  at  Cologne,  and  saw  all  the  sights.  The 
cathedral  was  not  then  finished,  and  the  town  still  boasted  its 
two-and-seventy  stinks,  as  counted  by  Coleridge.  Then  we 
returned  by  steamer  to  Mainz,  and  thence  footed  it  home. 

Little  by  little  I  rather  fell  away  from  my  American 
friends,  and  began  to  take  to  German  or  English  associates, 
and  especially  to  the  company  of  two  Englishmen.  One  was 
named  Leonard  Field,  who  is  now  a  lawyer  in  Lincoln's  Inn 
Fields;  the  other  was  Ewan  P.  Colquhoun,  a  younger  brother 
of  Sir  Patrick  Colquhoun,  whom  I  knew  well,  and  as  friend, 
in  after  years,  until  his  recent  death.  I  always,  however, 
maintained  a  great  intimacy  with  George  Ward,  of  Boston, 
who  became  long  after  a  banker  and  Baring's  agent  in  Amer 
ica.  In  one  way  and  another  these  two  twined  into  my  life 
in  after  years,  and  led  to  my  making  many  acquaintances  or 
friends. 

I  walked  a  great  deal  all  about  Heidelberg  to  many  very 
picturesque  places,  maintaining  deep  interest  in  all  I  saw 
by  much  loving  reading  of  Des  Knaben  Wunderhorn  and 


STUDENT  LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE.        15J 

Uhland's  collection  of  old  German  songs — his  own  poems  I 
knew  long  before — the  Nibelungen  and  Hero-Book,  and  a 
great  variety  of  other  works.  I  had  dropped  the  Occulta, 
and  for  a  year  or  two  read  nothing  of  the  kind  except  casually 
the  works  of  Eckhartshausen  and  Justinus  Kerner.  I  can 
now  see  that,  as  I  became  healthy  and  strong,  owing  to  the 
easy,  pleasant  existence  which  I  led,  it  was  best  for  me  after 
all.  "  Grappling  with  life "  and  earnestly  studying  a  pro 
fession  then  might  have  extinguished  me.  My  mental  spring, 
though  not  broken,  was  badly  bent,  and  it  required  a  long 
time  to  straighten  it. 

Colquhoun  was  only  eighteen,  but  far  beyond  his  years  in 
dissipation,  and  well-nigh  advanced  to  cool  cynicism.  With 
him  I  made  many  an  excursion  all  about  the  country. 
Wherever  a  Kirchweih  or  peasants'  ball  was  to  be  held,  he 
always  knew  of  it,  and  there  we  went.  One  morning  early 
he  came  to  my  rooms.  There  was  to  be  a  really  stunning 
duel  fought  early  between  a  Senior  and  some  very  illustrious 
Schldger,  and  he  had  two  English  friends  named  Burnett 
Avho  would  go  with  us.  So  we  went,  and  meeting  with  Riicker 
at  the  Pawkboden,  it  was  proposed  that  we  should  go  on  to 
gether  to  Baden-Baden.  To  which  I  objected  that  I  had 
only  twenty  florins  in  my  pocket,  and  had  no  time  to  return 
home  for  more.  "  Never  mind,"  said  Colquhoun ;  "  Riicker 
has  plenty  of  money ;  we  can  borrow  from  him." 

We  went  to  Baden  and  to  the  first  hotel,  and  had  a  fine 
dinner,  and  saw  the  Burnetts  off.  Then,  of  course,  to  the 
gaming-table,  where  Colquhoun  speedily  lost  all  his  money, 
and  I  so  much  that  I  had  but  ten  florins  left.  "  Never 
mind ;  we'll  pump  on  Riicker,"  said  Colquhoun. 

We  went  up  to  visit  the  old  castle.  While  there,  Riicker 
took  off  his  overcoat,  in  which  he  had  his  pocket-book,  and 
laid  it  over  a  chair.  When  we  returned  to  the  hotel  the 
pocket-book  was  gone !  There  we  were,  with  a  hotel-bill  to 
pay  and  never  a  cent  wherewith  to  pay  it.  I  had,  however, 
still  ten  florins.  Colquhoun  suddenly  remembered  that  he 


152  MEMOIRS. 

had  seen  something  in  the  town,  price  ten  florins,  which  he 
must  buy.  It  was  something  which  he  had  promised  to  buy 
for  a  relative  in  England.  It  was  a  very  serious  case  of 
necessity. 

I  doubted  my  dear  friend,  but  having  sworn  him  by  all 
his  gods  that  he  would  not  gamble  with  the  money,  I  gave 
it  to  him.  So  he,  of  course,  went  straight  to  the  gaming 
table,  and,  having  luck,  won  enough  to  pay  our  debt  and 
take  us  home. 

I  should  mention  that  Riicker  went  up  to  the  castle 
and  found  his  pocket-book  with  all  the  money.  "  For  not 
only  doth  Fortune  favour  the  bold,"  as  is  written  in  my 
great  unpublished  romance  of  "  Flaxius  the  Immortal,"  "  but, 
while  her  hand  is  in,  also  helps  their  friends  with  no  un 
sparing  measure,  as  is  marvellously  confirmed  by  Machia- 
velli." 

Vacation  came.  My  friends  scattered  far  and  wide.  I 
joined  with  three  German  friends  and  one  Frenchman,  and 
we  strapped  on  our  knapsacks  for  a  foot-journey  into  Switzer 
land.  First  we  went  to  Freiburg  in  Baden,  and  saw  the  old 
Cathedral,  and  so  on,  singing,  and  stopping  to  drink,  and 
meeting  with  other  students  from  other  universities,  and 
resting  in  forests,  amid  mountains,  by  roaring  streams,  and 
entering  cottages  and  chatting  with  girls.  Hurra  !  frei  ist 
der  bur sch! 

One  afternoon  we  walked  sixteen  miles  through  a  rain 
which  was  like  a  waterfall.  I  was  so  drenched  that  it  was 
with  difficulty  I  kept  my  passport  and  letter  of  exchange 
from  being  ruined.  When  we  came  out  of  the  storm  there 
were  six  of  us !  Another  student  had,  unseen,  joined  our 
party  in  the  rain,  and  I  had  never  noticed  it ! 

We  came  to  a  tavern  at  the  foot  of  the  Eigiberg.  My 
pack  was  soaked.  One  friend  lent  me  a  shirt,  another  a 
pair  of  drawers,  and  we  wrapped  ourselves  in  sheets  from 
the  beds  and  called  for  brandy  and  water  hot — a  pleasing 
novelty  to  the  Germans — and  so  went  to  bed.  The  next  day 


STUDENT  LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE.        153 

we  ascended  the  Rigi ;  found  many  students  there ;  did  not 
see  the  sun  rise  in  the  morning,  but  still  a  mighty  panorama, 
wondrous  fair,  and  so  walked  down  again.  And  receiving 
my  carpet-bag  at  Lucerne,  whither  I  had  had  the  precaution  to 
send  one,  I  dressed  myself  again  in  clean  linen  and  went  back 
to  Germany.  I  meant  to  travel  more  in  Switzerland,  but  it 
was  very  rainy  that  year,  and,  as  it  proved,  I  did  wisely. 

I  returned  to  Spitz,  but  his  house  was  full  of  English, 
and  he  informed  me,  rather  exultantly  and  foolishly,  that  he 
had  no  room  for  me,  and  could  not  tell  me  where  to  go, 
"  every  place  was  full."  As  I  had  spent  money  freely  with 
him  I  did  not  like  it.  The  head-waiter  followed  me  out  and 
recommended  the  Black  Eagle,  kept  by  Herr  Lehr.  There 
I  went,  got  a  good  room,  and  for  months  after  dined  daily  at 
its  table-d'liote.  I  sent  friends  there,  and  returned  to  the 
house  with  my  wife  twenty  years  later.  My  brother  also 
went  there  long  after,  and  endeared  himself  to  all,  helping 
Herr  Lehr  to  plant  his  vines.  In  after  years  Herr  Lehr  had 
forgotten  me,  but  not  my  brother.  Lehr's  son  was  a  gentle 
manly  young  fellow,  well  educated.  He  became  a  captain, 
and  was  the  first  officer  killed  in  the  Franco-German  war. 

Vacation  passed,  and  the  students  returned  and  lectures 
were  resumed.  There  was  a  grand  Commers  or  students' 
supper  meeting  at  which  I  was  present ;  and  again  the  duel 
ling-ground  rang  with  the  sound  of  blades,  and  all  was  merry 
as  before.  Herr  Zimmer,  the  University  dancing-master, 
gave  lessons  and  cotillion  or  waltzing-parties  thrice  a  week, 
and  these  I  regularly  attended.  Those  who  came  to  them 
were  the  daughters  of  the  humbler  professors  and  respect 
able  shopkeepers.  During  the  previous  session  I  had  taken 
lessons  from  a  little  old  Frenchman,  who  brought  his  fiddle 
and  a  pretty  daughter  twice  a  week  to  my  room,  where,  with 
Ward,  we  formed  a  class  of  three. 

This  gentleman  was  a  perfect  type — fit  to  be  staged  with 
out  a  touch  of  change — of  the  old  emigre,  who  has  now  van 
ished,  even  from  among  the  French.  His  bows,  his  wit — la 


154  MEMOIRS. 

grace  extraordinaire — the  intonations  of  his  voice,  and  his 
vivacity,  were  beyond  the  art  of  any  actor  now  living.  There 
were  many  more  peculiar  and  marked  types  of  character  in 
the  last  generation  than  now  exist,  when  Everybody  is  becom 
ing  Everybody  else  with  such  fearful  rapidity. 

There  were  four  great  masked  balls  held  in  Heidelberg 
during  the  winter,  each  corresponding  to  a  special  state  of 
society.  That  at  the  Museum  or  great  University  Club  was 
patronised  by  the  elite  of  nobility  and  the  professors  and 
their  families.  Then  came  the  Harmonie — respectable,  but 
not  aristocratic.  Then  another  in  a  hotel,  which  was  rather 
more  rowdy  than  reputable ;  not  really  outrageous,  yet  where 
the  gentlemen  students  "  whooped  it  up  "  in  grand  style  with 
congenial  grisettes ;  and,  finally,  there  was  a  fancy  ball  at 
the  Waldhorn,  or  some  such  place,  or  several  of  them,  over 
the  river,  Avhere  peasants  and  students  with  maids  to  match 
could  waltz  once  round  the  vast  hall  for  a  penny  till  stopped 
by  a  cordon  of  robust  rustics.  We  thought  it  great  fun  with 
our  partners  to  waltz  impetuously  and  bump  with  such  force 
against  the  barrier  as  to  break  through,  in  which  case  we 
were  not  only  greatly  admired,  but  got  another  waltz  gratis. 
We  had  wild  peasant-dancing  in  abundance,  and  the  con 
sumption  of  wine  and  beer  was  something  awful. 

One  morning  a  German  student  named  Griiner,  who  had 
been  at  Jena,  came  to  my  room  with  a  brilliant  proposition. 
We  should  go  to  Frankfort  and  hear  Jenny  Lind  sing  in  her 
great  role  of  Norma.  I  had  already  heard  her  sing  in  con 
cert  in  Heidelberg — where,  by  the  way,  the  students  rushed 
into  her  room  as  soon  as  she  had  left,  and  tore  to  strips  the 
bed  in  which  she  had  slept,  and  carried  them  away  for  sou 
venirs,  to  the  great  amazement  of  an  old  Englishman  who 
had  just  been  put  into  the  room.  (N.  B. — I  was  not  in  the 
party.)  I  objected  that  it  was  getting  to  the  end  of  the 
month,  and  that  I  had  not  money  enough  for  such  an  out 
ing.  To  which  he  replied,  that  we  could  go  on  to  Homburg, 
and  make  money  enough  at  rouge-et-noir  to  cover  all  ex- 


STUDENT  LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE.        155 

penses.    This  obvious  and  admirable  method  of  raising  funds 
had  not  occurred  to  me,  so  I  agreed  to  go. 

We  went  to  Frankfort,  and  heard  the  greatly  overrated 
Jenny  Lind,  and  the  next  day  proceeded  to  Hamburg,  and 
at  once  to  the  green  table.  Here  I  lost  a  little,  but  Griiner 
made  so  much,  that  on  returning  to  the  table  I  took  from  it 
a  sufficient  sum  to  cover  all  our  expenses,  and  told  him  that, 
come  what  might,  it  must  remain  untouched,  and  gave  him 
the  remainder.  That  afternoon  I  played  for  five-franc  pieces, 
and  at  one  time  had  both  my  side-pockets  so  full  that  they 
weighed  very  heavily.  And  these  again  I  lost.  Then  Griiner 
lost  all  his,  and  came  imploring  me  for  more,  but  I  would 
not  give  him  a  kreutzer.  Matters  were  beginning  to  look 
serious.  I  had  a  reserved  fund  of  perhaps  fifty  napoleons, 
which  I  kept  for  dire  need  or  accidents.  That  evening  I 
observed  a  man  who  had  great  luck,  winning  twice  out  of 
three  times.  I  watched  his  play,  and  as  soon  as  he  lost  I  set 
a  napoleon — by  which  I  won  enough  to  clear  my  expenses, 
and  buy  me,  moreover,  a  silver-headed  cane,  a  gold  watch- 
chain,  and  two  Swiss  watches.  I  may  mention  by  the  way, 
that  since  that  day  I  have  never  played  at  anything,  save 
losing  a  ten-franc  piece  in  after  years  at  Wiesbaden. 

There  dined  very  often  at  our  table-cVMte  in  the  Adler 
an  old  German  lady  named  Helmine  von  Chezy,  who  had  a 
reputation  as  a  poetess.  With  her  I  sometimes  conversed. 
One  day  she  narrated  in  full  what  she  declared  was  the  true 
story  of  Caspar  Iliiuser.  Unto  her  Heine  had  addressed  the 
epigram — 

"  Ilelraine  von  Chezy, 

Geborene  Klcncke, 

Ich  bitte  Sic,  geh'  Sio 

Mit  ihrer  Poesie, 

Sonst  kriegt  Sie  die  Kriinke  ! " 

"  Helmine  von  Chezy, 
Born  Klcncke,  I  pray 
With  your  pestilent  poems 
You'll  hasten  away." 


156  MEMOIRS. 

There  was  also  an  elderly  and  very  pleasant  Englishman, 
with  whom  I  became  rather  intimate,  and  who  was  very  kind 
to  me.  This  was  the  well-known  Captain  Medwin,  who  had 
known  so  well  Byron,  Shelley,  Trelawny,  and  their  compeers. 
He  was  full  of  anecdotes,  which  I  now  wish  that  I  had  re 
corded.  He  introduced  me  to  Lady  Caroline  de  Crespigny, 
who  was  then  living  permanently  in  Heidelberg.  This  lady, 
who  was  said  to  be  then  fifty  years  of  age,  was  still  so  young- 
looking  and  beautiful,  that  I  cannot  remember  in  all  my  life 
to  have  ever  seen  such  an  instance  of  time  arrested.  I  also 
made  the  acquaintance  of  Professor  Creutzer,  author  of  the 
Symbolik,  a  work  of  vast  learning.*  And  I  went  to  balls, 
one  at  Professor  Gervinus's. 

I  entered  myself  with  the  great  Leopold  Gmelin  for  a 
course  of  lectures  on  chemistry,  and  worked  away  every 
morning  with  the  test-tubes  at  analytical  chemistry  under 
Professor  Posselt,  at  which  I  one  day  nearly  poisoned  myself 
by  tasting  oxalic  acid,  which  I  did  not  recognise  under  its 
German  name  of  Kleesaure.  I  read  broad  and  wide  in  Ger 
man  literature,  as  I  think  may  be  found  by  examining  my 
notes  to  my  translation  of  Heine's  works,  and  went  with 
Field  several  times  to  Frankfort,  to  attend  the  theatre,  and 
otherwise  amuse  ourselves.  There  I  once  made  the  acquaint 
ance  of  the  very  famous  comic  actor  Hasselt.  He  was  a 
grave,  almost  melancholy  man  when  off  the  stage,  very  fond 
of  archaeology  and  antiquities. 

The  winter  drew  to  an  end.  I  had  long  felt  a  deep  de 
sire  to  visit  Munich,  to  study  art,  and  to  investigate  funda 
mentally  the  wonderful  and  mysterious  science  of  ^Esthetics, 
of  which  I  had  heard  so  much.  So  I  packed  up  and  paid  my 
bills,  and  passing  through  one  town  where  there  was  in  the 
hotel  where  I  stopped,  the  last  wolf  ever  killed  in  Germany, 

*  He  was  the  real  head,  and  the  most  sensible,  of  that  vast  array  of 
wild  antiquaries,  among  whom  are  Faber,  Godfrey  Higgins,  Inman, 
Bryant,  and  several  score  more  whom  I  in  my  youth  adored  and  de 
voured  with  a  delight  surpassing  words. 


STUDENT  LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE.        157 

and  freshly  killed  (I  believe  he  has  been  slain  two  or  three 
times  since),  and  at  another  where  I  was  invited  to  see  a 
criminal  beheaded  by  the  sword — which  sight  I  missed  by 
over-sleeping  myself — I  came  through  Stuttgart,  Ulm,  and 
Augsburg  to  the  German  Athens. 

I  went  to  the  Hotel  Maulick,  where  I  stayed  a  week. 
Opposite  to  me  at  table  every  day  sat  the  famous  Saphir,  the 
great  Vienna  wit  and  licensed  joker.  Of  course  I  soon  be 
came  acquainted  with  some  students,  and  was  entered  at  the 
University,  and  got  the  card  which  exempted  me  from  being 
arrested  by  any  save  the  University  beadles.  I  believe  that 
we  even  had  our  own  hangman,  but  as  none  of  my  friends 
ever  had  occasion  for  his  services  I  did  not  inquire.  The 
same  ticket  also  entitled  me  to  attend  the  opera  at  half-price, 
and  if  it  had  only  included  tobacco  and  beer  gratis,  it  would 
have  been  the  means  of  vast  economies. 

I  entered  myself  for  a  course  of  lectures  by  Professor 
Friedrich  Thiersch  on  ^Esthetics.  He  it  was  who  had  trained 
Heine  to  art,  and  I  venture  to  say  that  in  my  case  the  seed 
fell  on  good  ground.  I  took  in  every  thought.  His  system 
agreed,  on  the  whole,  perfectly  with  that  advanced  in  after 
years  by  Taine,  and  marvellously  well  with  that  set  forth  in 
the  "  Essays,  Speculative  and  Suggestive,"  of  J.  A.  Symonds 
—that  is,  it  was  eclectic  and  deductive  from  historical  peri 
ods,  and  not  at  all  "  rhapsodical  "  or  merely  subjective.  I 
bought  the  best  works,  such  as  Kugler's,  for  guides,  and  stud 
ied  hard,  and  frequented  the  Pinacothek  and  Glyptothek,  and 
I  may  say  really  educated  myself  well  in  the  history  of  art  and 
different  schools  of  aesthetics.  My  previous  reading,  travel, 
and  tastes  fitted  me  in  every  way  to  easily  master  such  knowl 
edge.  I  also  followed  Becker's  course  on  Schelling,  but  my 
heart  was  not  in  it,  as  it  would  have  been  two  years  before. 
The  lectures  of  Professor  Henry  and  Gmelin  and  true  Sci 
ence  had  caused  in  me  a  distrust  of  metaphysics  and  psy 
chological  systems  and  theories.  I  began  to  see  that  they 
were  all  only  very  ingenious  shufflings  and  combinations  and 
8 


158  MEMOIRS. 

phases  of  the  same  old  cards  of  Pantheism,  which  could  be 
made  into  Theism,  Pietism,  Atheism,  or  Materialism  to  suit 
any  taste.  I  was  advancing  rapidly  to  pure  science,  though 
Evolution  was  as  yet  unknown  by  the  name,  albeit  the  Oken- 
ites  and  others  with  their  Natur-philosophie  were  coming 
closely  to  it. 

In  fact,  I  think  it  may  be  truly  said  that,  as  regarded  de 
ducing  man  and  all  things  from  a  prima  mater ia  or  proto 
plasm  by  means  of  natural  selection  and  vast  study  of  differ 
entiation,  they  were  exactly  where  Darwin,  and  Wallace,  and 
Huxley  were  when  we  began  to  know  the  latter.  I  do  not 
agree  with  Max  Miiller  in  his  very  German  and  very  artfully 
disguised  and  defended  theory  that  the  religious  idea  origi 
nated  in  a  vague  sense  of  the  Infinite  in  the  minds  of  sav 
ages  ;  for  I  believe  it  began  with  the  bogeys  and  nightmares 
of  obscure  terror,  hunger,  disease,  and  death ;  but  the  Pro 
fessor  is  quite  right  in  declaring  that  Evolution  was  first  cre 
ated  or  developed  in  the  German  Natur-philosophie^  the  true 
beginning  of  which  was  with  the  Italian  naturalists,  such  as 
Bruno  and  De  Cusa.  What  is  to  be  observed  is  this,  yet  few 
understand  it,  nor  has  even  Symonds  cleared  the  last  barrier 
— that  when  a  Pantheist  has  got  so  far  as  to  conceive  an  iden 
tity  between  matter  and  spirit,  while  on  the  other  hand  a  sci 
entific  materialist  rises  to  the  unity  of  spirit  and  matter,  there 
is  nothing  to  choose  between  them.  Only  this  is  true,  that 
the  English  Evolutionists,  by  abandoning  reasoning  based  on 
Pantheistic  poetic  bases,  as  in  Schelling's  case,  or  purely 
logical,  as  in  Hegel's,  and  by  proceeding  on  plainly  prosaic, 
merely  material,  simply  scientific  grounds  after  the  example  of 
Bacon,  swept  away  so  much  rubbish  that  people  no  longer  rec 
ognised  the  old  temple  of  Truth,  and  really  thought  it  was  a 
brand  new  workshop  or  laboratory.  But  I  can  remember  very 
distinctly  that  to  me  Evolution  did  not  come  as  if  I  had  re 
ceived  a  new  soul,  or  even  a  new  body,  but  had  merely  had  a 
bath,  and  put  on  new  garments.  And  as  I  became  an  Eng 
lish  Evolutionist  in  due  time,  I  had  this  great  advantage,  that 


STUDENT  LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE.        159 

by  beginning  so  young  I  succeeded  in  doing  very  thoroughly 
what  Symonds  and  Maudsley  and  many  more  clearly  under 
stand  is  most  difficult — that  is,  not  merely  to  accept  the  truth, 
but  to  get  rid  of  the  old  associations  of  the  puzzle  of  a  differ 
ence  between  spirit  and  matter,  which  thing  caused  even  the 
former  to  muddle  about  "  God,"  and  express  disgust  at  "  Ma 
terialism,"  and  declare  that  there  is  "  an  insoluble  problem," 
which  is  all  in  flat  contradiction  to  pure  Evolution,  which 
docs  not  meddle  with  "  the  Unknowable." 

There  was  a  Jewish  professor  named  Karl  Friedrich  Neu 
mann,  who  was  about  as  many-sided  a  man  as  could  be  found 
even  in  a  German  university.  He  was  a  great  Chinese  scholar 
— had  been  in  China,  and  also  read  on  mathematics  and  mod 
ern  history.  I  attended  these  lectures  (not  the  mathematics) 
and  liked  them  :  so  we  became  acquainted.  I  found  that  he 
had  written  a  very  interesting  little  work  on  the  visit  recorded 
in  the  Chinese  annals  of  certain  Buddhist  monks  to  Fusang 
— probably  Mexico — in  the  fifth  century.  I  proposed  to  trans 
late  it,  and  did  so,  he  making  emendations  and  adding  fresh 
matter  to  the  English  version. 

Professor  Neumann  was  a  vigorous  reader,  but  he  soon 
found  that  I  was  of  the  same  kind.  One  day  he  lent  me  a 
large  work  on  some  Indian  subject,  and  the  next  I  brought 
it  back.  He  said  that  I  could  not  have  read  it  hrthe  time. 
I  begged  him  to  examine  me  on  it,  which  he  did,  and  ex 
pressed  his  amazement,  for  he  declared  that  he  had  never 
met  with  anything  like  it  in  all  his  life.  This  from  him  was 
praise  indeed.  Long  after,  in  America,  George  Boker  in 
closer  fashion  tested  me  on  this  without  my  knowing  it,  and 
published  the  result  in  an  article. 

I  became  acquainted  Avith  a  learned  writer  on  art  named 
Foerster,  who  had  married  a  daughter  of  Jean  Paul  Eichter, 
and  dined  once  or  twice  at  his  house.  I  also  saw  him  twenty 
years  later  in  Munich.  George  Ward  came  in  from  Berlin  to 
stay  some  weeks  in  Munich.  I  saw  Taglioni  several  times  at 
the  opera,  but  did  not  make  her  acquaintance  till  1870.  The 


160  MEMOIRS. 

great,  tremendous  celebrity  at  that  time  in  Munich  was  also 
an  opera-dancer,  though  not  on  the  stage.  This  was  Lola 
Montez,  the  King's  last  favourite.  He  had  had  all  his  mis 
tresses  painted,  one  by  one,  and  the  gallery  was  open  to  the 
public.  Lola's  was  the  last,  and  there  was  a  blank  space  still 
left  for  a  few  more.  I  thought  that  about  twenty-five  would 
complete  the  collection. 

Lola  Montez  had  a  small  palace,  and  was  raised  to  be  the 
Countess  of  Landsfeldt,  but  this  was  not  enough.  She  wished 
to  run  the  whole  kingdom  and  government,  and  kick  out  the 
Jesuits,  and  kick  up  the  devil,  generally  speaking.  But  the 
Jesuits  and  the  mob  were  too  much  for  her.  I  knew  her  very 
well  in  later  years  in  America,  when  she  deeply  regretted  that 
I  had  not  called  on  her  in  Munich.  I  must  have  had  a  great 
moral  influence  on  her,  for,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  I  arn  the 
only  friend  whom  she  ever  had  at  whom  she  never  threw  a 
plate  or  book,  or  attacked  with  a  dagger,  poker,  broom,  chair, 
or  other  deadly  weapon.  We  were  both  born  at  the  same 
time  in  the  same  year,  and  I  find  by  the  rules  of  sorcery  that 
she  is  the  first  person  who  will  meet  me  when  I  go  to  heaven. 
I  always  had  a  great  and  strange  respect  for  her  singular  tal 
ents  ;  there  were  very  few  indeed,  if  any  there  were,  who  really 
knew  the  depths  of  that  wild  Irish  soul.  Men  generally  were 
madly  fascinated  with  her,  then  as  suddenly  disenchanted,  and 
then  detracted  from  her  in  every  way. 

There  were  many  adventuresses  in  later  years  who  passed 
themselves  about  the  world  for  Lola  Montez.  I  have  met 
with  two  friends,  whom  I  am  sure  were  honest  gentlemen, 
who  told  me  they  had  known  her  intimately.  Both  de 
scribed  her  as  a  large,  powerful,  or  robust  woman.  Lola  was 
in  reality  very  small,  pale,  and  thin,  or  frcle,  with  beautiful 
blue  eyes  and  curly  black  hair.  She  was  a  typical  beauty, 
with  a  face  full  of  character,  and  a  person  of  remarkably 
great  and  varied  reading.  One  of  her  most  intimate  friends 
was  wont  to  tell  her  that  she  and  I  had  many  very  strange 
characteristics  in  common,  which  we  shared  with  no  one  else, 


STUDENT  LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE.        161 

while  we  differed  utterly  in  other  respects.  It  was  very  like 
both  of  us,  for  Lola,  when  defending  the  existence  of  the  soul 
against  an  atheist,  to  tumble  over  a  great  trunk  of  books  of 
the  most  varied  kind,  till  she  came  to  an  old  vellum-bound 
copy  of  Apuleius,  and  proceed  to  establish  her  views  accord 
ing  to  his  subtle  Xeo-Platonism.  But  she  romanced  and  em 
broidered  so  much  in  conversation  that  she  did  not  get  credit 
for  what  she  really  knew. 

I  once  met  with  a  literary  man  in  New  York  who  told 
me  he  had  long  desired  to  make  my  acquaintance,  because  he 
had  heard  her  praise  me  so  immeasurably  beyond  anybody 
else  she  had  ever  known,  that  he  wanted  to  see  what  manner 
of  man  I  could  be.  1  heard  the  same  from  another,  in  an 
other  place  long  after.  Once  she  proposed  to  me  to  make  a 
bolt  with  her  to  Europe,  which  I  declined.  The  secret  of 
my  influence  was  that  I  always  treated  her  with  respect,  and 
never  made  love  or  flirted. 

An  intimate  of  both  of  us  who  was  present  when  this 
friendly  proposal  was  made  remarked  with  some  astonish 
ment,  "  But,  Madame,  by  what  means  can  you  two  live  ?  " 
"  Oh,"  replied  Lola  innocently  and  confidingly,  "  people  like 
us  "  (or  "  who  know  as  much  as  we  ")  "  can  get  a  living  any 
where."  And  she  rolled  us  each  a  cigarette,  with  one  for 
herself.  I  could  tell  a  number  of  amusing  tales  of  this  Queen 
of  Bohemia,  but  Space,  the  Kantean  god,  forbids  me  more. 
But  I  may  say  that  I  never  had  more  really  congenial  and 
wide-embracing  conversations  with  any  human  being  in  my 
life  than  with  Her  Majesty.  There  was  certainly  no  topic, 
within  my  range,  at  least,  on  which  she  could  not  converse 
with  some  substance  of  personal  experience  and  reading. 
She  had  a  mania  for  meeting  and  knowing  all  kinds  of  pe 
culiar  people. 

I  lived  in  the  main  street  near  the  Karlsthor,  opposite  a 
tavern  called  the  Ober-Pollinger,  which  was  a  mediaeval 
tavern  in  those  days.  My  landlady  was  a  nice  old  soul,  and 
she  had  two  daughters,  one  of  whom  was  a  beauty,  and  as 


1C2  MEMOIRS. 

gentle  and  Gerrnanly  good  as  a  girl  could  be.  Her  face  still 
lives  in  a  great  picture  by  a  great  artist.  We  lived  on  the 
third  floor ;  on  the  ground  was  a  shop,  in  which  cutlery  and 
some  fireworks  were  sold.  It  befell  that  George  Ward  and  I 
were  very  early  in  the  morning  sitting  on  a  bench  before  the 
Ober-Pollinger,  waiting  for  a  stage-coach,  which  would  take 
us  to  some  place  out  of  town ;  when  bang  !  bang  !  crack  !  I 
heard  a  noise  in  the  firework  shop,  and  saw  explosions  puff 
ing  smoke  out  of  the  bursting  windows.  Great  God  !  the 
front  shop  was  on  fire ;  it  was  full  of  fireworks,  such  as  rock 
ets  and  crackers,  and  I  knew  there  was  a  barrel  of  gunpowder 
in  the  back-shop  !  I  had  found  it  out  a  few  days  before, 
when  I  went  there  to  buy  some  for  my  pistols.  And  the 
family  were  asleep.  In  an  instant  I  tore  across  the  street, 
rushed  screaming  upstairs,  roused  them  all  out  of  bed,  howl 
ing,  "  It  burns  ! — there's  gunpowder !  "  Yet,  hurried  as  I 
was,  I  caught  up  a  small  hand-bag,  which  contained  my 
money,  as  I  got  the  girls  and  their  mother  downstairs.  I  was 
just  in  time  to  see  a  gigantic  butcher  burst  open  the  two-inch 
door  with  an  axe,  and  roll  out  the  barrel  containing  two  hun 
dred  pounds  of  gunpowder,  as  the  flames  were  licking  it.  I 
saw  them  distinctly. 

It  was  the  awful  row  which  I  made  which  had  brought 
the  people  out  betimes,  including  the  butcher  and  his  axe. 
But  for  that,  there  would  have  been  a  fearful  blow-up.  But 
the  butcher  showed  himself  a  man  of  gold  on  this  occasion, 
for  he  it  was  who  really  saved  us  all.  A  day  or  two  after, 
when  I  was  jesting  about  myself  as  a  knightly  rescuer  of 
forlorn  damsels,  in  reply  to  some  remark  on  the  event, 
George  Ward  called  me  to  order.  There  was,  as  he  kindly 
said,  too  much  that  he  respected  in  that  event  to  make  fun 
of  it. 

George  Ward  is  deeply  impressed  on  my  memory.  He 
was  a  sedate  young  fellow,  with  a  gift  of  dry  humour,  now 
and  then  expressed  in  quaint  remarks,  a  gentleman  in  every 
instinct,  much  given  to  reading  and  reflecting.  When  he 


STUDENT  LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN   EUROPE.        163 

said  anything,  he  meant  it,  and  this  remark  of  his  struck  me 
more  than  the  event  itself  had  done. 

And  to  think  that  I  quite  forgot,  in  narrating  my  Prince 
ton  experiences,  to  tell  of  something  very  much  like  this  in 
cident.  It  was  in  my  last  year,  and  my  landlady  had  just 
moved  into  a  new  house,  when,  owing  to  some  defect  in  the 
building,  it  caught  fire,  but  was  luckily  saved  after  it  had 
received  some  damage.  I  awoke  in  the  night,  flames  burst 
ing  into  my  room,  and  much  smoke.  It  happened  that  the 
day  before  a  friend  in  Alabama  had  sent  me  eleven  hundred 
dollars  wherewith  to  pay  for  him  certain  debts.  My  first 
thought  was  for  this  money,  so  I  hurried  to  get  the  key  of 
the  secretary  in  which  it  was — keys  never  can  be  found  in  a 
hurry — and  when  found,  I  could  not  find  the  right  one  in  the 
bunch.  And  then  it  stuck  in  the  lock  and  would  not  open 
it,  till  finally  I  succeeded  and  got  the  money  out.  And  then, 
not  finding  myself  quite  dead,  I  in  a  hurry  turned  the  con 
tents  of  three  drawers  in  my  bureau  and  my  linen  on  to  the 
bed,  threw  on  it  my  coats  and  trousers,  tied  the  four  corners 
of  a  sheet  together  in  one  bundle,  caught  up  my  boots, 
fencing-foils,  &c.,  to  make  another,  and  so  rescued  all  I  had. 
I  verily  believe  I  did  it  all  in  one  minute.  That  day  the 
President,  old  Dr.  Carnahan,  when  I  plead  "  not  prepared  " 
for  failing  at  recitation,  excused  me  with  a  grim  smile.  I 
had  really  that  time  some  excuse  for  it.  During  the  Munich 
incident  I  thought  of  the  sheets.  But  I  had  gunpowder  and 
two  girls  to  look  after  in  the  latter  place,  and  time  and  tide 
— or  gunpowder  and  girls — wait  for  no  man. 

And  so,  with  study  and  art  and  friends,  and  much  terrible 
drinking  of  beer  and  smoking  of  Varinas-Kanaster,  and 
roaming  at  times  in  gay  greenwoods  with  pretty  maids  alway, 
and  music  and  dancing,  the  Munich  semester  came  to  an  end. 
I  proposed  to  travel  with  an  English  friend  named  Pottinger 
to  Vienna,  and  thence  by  some  adventurous  route  or  other 
through  Germany  to  Paris ;  which  was  a  great  deal  more 
to  undertake  in  those  days  than  it  now  is,  entailing  several 


MExMOIRS. 

hundred  per  cent,  more  pain  and  sorrow,  fasting,  want  of 
sleep  and  washing,  than  any  man  would  encounter  in  these 
days  in  going  round  the  world  and  achieving  la  grande  route  ; 
or  the  common  European  tour,  to  boot.  For  it  befell  me  ere 
I  reached  my  journey's  end  to  pass  eighteen  nights  in  one 
month  in  Eilwagen  or  waggons,  the  latter  being  sometimes 
without  springs.  And  once  or  twice  or  thrice  I  was  so  ut 
terly  worn  and  wearied  that  I  slept  all  night,  though  I  was 
so  tossed  about  that  I  awoke  in  the  morning  literally  bruised 
from  head  to  foot,  with  my  chimney-pot  hat  under  my  feet ; 
which  was  worse  than  even  a  forced  march  on  short  com 
mons — as  I  found  in  after  years — or  driving  in  a  Russian 
telega,  or  jackassing  in  Egypt,  or  any  other  of  the  trifles 
over  which  pampered  tourists  make  such  heart-rending  howls 
now-a-days. 

So  we  went  to  Prague,  and  thence  to  Vienna,  which,  in 
the  year  1847,  was  a  very  different  place  indeed  to  what  it  is 
at  present;  for  an  unbounded  gaiety  and  an  air  of  reckless 
festivity  was  apparent  then  all  the  time  to  everybody  every 
where.  Under  it  all  lurked  and  rankled  abuses,  municipal, 
social,  and  political,  such  as  would  in  1893  be  deemed  in 
credible  if  not  unnatural  (as  may  be  read  in  a  clever  novel 
called  .Die  schone  Wienerinn),  but  on  the  surface  all  was 
brilliant  foam  and  sunshine  and  laughing  sirens.  What  new 
thing  Strauss  would  play  in  the  evening  was  the  great  event 
of  the  day.  I  saw  and  heard  the  great  Johann  Strauss — this 
was  the  grandfather — and  in  after  years  his  son,  and  the  schone 
Edie  his  grandson.  Everywhere  one  heard  music,  and  the 
Prater  was  a  gay  and  festive  paradise  indeed.  There  was  no 
business;  the  town  lived  on  the  Austrian,  Hungarian,  Bohe 
mian,  Russian,  and  other  nobility,  who  in  those  days  were 
extravagant  and  ostentatious  to  a  degree  now  undreamed  of, 
and  on  strangers.  As  for  free  and  easy  licentiousness,  Paris 
was  a  trifle  to  it,  and  the  police  had  strict  orders  to  encourage 
everything  of  the  kind;  the  result  being  that  the  seventh 
commandment  in  all  its  phases  was  treated  like  pie-crust,  as 


STUDENT  LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE.        165 

a  thing  made  to  be  broken,  the  oftener  the  better.  Even 
on  our  first  arriving  at  our  hotel,  our  good-natured  landlord, 
moved  by  the  principle  that  it  was  not  good  for  a  young  man 
to  be  alone,  informed  us  that  if  we  wished  to  have  damsels  in 
our  rooms  no  objection  would  be  interposed.  "Why  not?" 
he  said ;  "  this  is  not  a  church  "  ;  the  obvious  inference  being 
that  to  a  Viennese  every  place  not  a  church  must  necessarily 
be  a  temple  to  Venus.  And  every  Wiener,  when  spoken  to, 
roared  with  laughter ;  and  there  were  minstrels  in  the  streets, 
and  musicians  in  every  dining-place  and  cafe,  and  great  ring 
ing  of  bells  in  chimes,  and  'twas  merry  in  hall  when  beards 
wagged  all,  and  "  the  world  went  very  well  in  those  days." 
Vienna  is  a  far  finer  town  now,  but  it  is  a  Quaker  meeting 
house  compared  to  what  it  was  for  gaiety  forty  years  ago. 

This  change  of  life  and  manners  has  spread,  and  will  con 
tinue  to  spread,  all  over  the  world.  In  feudal  times  the  peo 
ple  were  kept  quiet  by  means  of  holidays,  carnivals,  proces 
sions,  fairs,  fairy-tales,  treats,  and  indulgences ;  even  the 
common  childish  instinct  for  gay  dress  and  picturesqueness 
of  appearance  was  encouraged,  and  at  high  tides  everybody 
was  fed  and  given  to  drink :  so  that  if  the  poor  toiled  and 
fasted  and  prayed,  it  might  be  for  months,  they  had  their  joy 
ous  revellings  to  anticipate,  when  there  were  free  tables 
even  for  strangers.  In  those  days — 

"  A  Christmas  banquet  oft  would  cheer 
A  poor  man's  heart  for  half  the  year." 

This  Middle  Age  lasted  effectively  until  the  epoch  of  the 
Revolution  and  railroads,  or,  to  fix  a  date,  till  about  1848. 
And  then  all  at  once,  as  at  a  breath,  it  all  disappeared,  and 
now  lives,  so  to  speak,  only  in  holes  and  corners.  For  as 
soon  as  railroads  came,  factories  sprang  up  and  Capital  began 
to  employ  Labour,  and  Labour  to  plot  and  combine  against 
Capital ;  and  what  with  scientific  inventions  and  a  sudden 
stimulus  to  labour,  and  newspapers,  the  multitude  got  beyond 
fancy  dresses  and  the  being  amused  to  keep  them  quiet  like 


MEMOIRS. 

children,  and  so  tliejuventus  mundi  passed  away.  "  It  is  a  per 
fect  shame  !  "  say  the  dear  young  lady  tourists, "  that  the  peas 
antry  no  longer  wear  their  beautiful  dresses ;  they  ought  to 
be  obliged  to  keep  them  up."  "  But  how  would  you  like,  my 
dear,  if  you  were  of  the  lower  orders,  to  wear  a  dress  which 
proclaimed  it?"  Here  the  conversation  cease th,  for  it  be 
comes  too  deep  for  the  lady  tourist  to  follow. 

How  it  was  we  wandered  I  do  not  distinctly  remember, 
but  having  visited  Nuremberg,  Prague,  and  Dresden,  we 
went  to  Breslau,  where  a  fancy  seized  us  to  go  to  Cracow. 
True,  we  had  not  a  special  vise  from  a  Russian  minister  to 
enter  the  Muscovite  dominions,  but  the  police  at  Breslau,  who 
(as  I  was  afterwards  told)  loved  to  make  trouble  for  those  on 
the  frontier,  bade  us  be  of  good  cheer  and  cheek  it  out, 
neither  to  be  afraid  of  any  man,  and  to  go  ahead  bravely. 
Which  we  did. 

There  was  a  sweet  scene  at  the  frontier  station  on  the 
Polish-Eussian  line  at  about  three  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
when  the  grim  and  insolent  officials  discovered  that  our  pass 
ports  had  only  the  police  vise  from  Breslau !  I  was  asked 
why  I  had  not  in  my  native  country  secured  the  vise  of  a 
Russian  minister ;  to  which  I  replied  that  in  America  the 
very  existence  of  such  a  country  as  Russia  was  utterly  un 
known,  and  that  I  myself  was  astonished  to  find  that  Rus 
sians  knew  what  passports  were.  Also  that  I  always  sup 
posed  that  foreigners  conferred  a  great  benefit  on  a  country 
by  spending  their  money  in  it ;  but  that  if  I  could  not  be  ad 
mitted,  that  was  an  end  of  it ;  it  was  a  matter  of  very  tri 
fling  consequence,  indeed,  for  we  really  did  not  care  twopence 
whether  we  saw  Russia  or  not ;  a  country  more  or  less  made 
very  little  difference  to  such  travellers  as  we  were. 

Cheek  is  a  fine  thing  in  its  way,  and  on  this  occasion 
I  developed  enough  brass  to  make  a  pan,  and  enough 
"  sass  "  to  fill  it ;  but  all  in  vain.  When  I  visited  the  Mus 
covite  realm  in  after  years  I  was  more  kindly  received.  On 
this  occasion  we  were  closely  searched  and  re-searched,  al- 


STUDENT   LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE.        167 

though  we  were  not  allowed  to  go  on  into  Eussia !  Every 
square  inch  of  everything  was  examined  as  with  a  microscope 
— even  the  small  scraps  of  newspaper  in  which  soap  or  such 
trifles  were  wrapped  were  examined,  a  note  made  as  to  each, 
and  all  put  under  paper-weights ;  and  whatever  was  sus 
pected — as,  for  instance,  books  or  pamphlets — was  confiscated, 
although,  as  I  said,  we  were  turned  back  !  And  this  robbery 
accomplished,  we  were  informed  that  the  stage-coach,  or 
rather  rough  post-waggon,  in  which  we  came,  would  return  at 
five  o'clock  P.  M.,  and  that  we  could  in  it  go  back  to  Dresden, 
and  might  pass  the  time  till  then  on  a  bench  outside  the 
building — reflecting  on  our  sins  !  I  had  truly  some  papers 
about  me  which  I  did  not  care  to  have  examined,  but  these 
were  in  my  cravat,  and  even  Kussian  ingenuity  had  not  at 
that  time  got  beyond  picking  pockets  and  feeling  the  linings 
of  coats.  It  has  since  been  suggested  to  me  by  something 
which  I  read  that  I  was  under  suspicion.  I  had  in  Munich 
aided  a  Swiss  student  who  was  under  police  surveillance  for 
political  intriguing  to  escape,  by  lending  him  money  to  get 
away.  It  is  probable  that  for  this  my  passport  was  marked 
in  a  peculiar  manner.  My  companion,  Pottinger,  was  not 
much  searched  ;  all  suspicion  seemed  to  fall  on  me. 

The  stage  went  on,  and  Pottinger  and  I  sat  on  the  bench 
in  a  mild  drizzle  at  half-past  three  in  the  morning,  with  as 
miserable  a  country  round  about  as  mortal  man  ever  beheld. 
By-ancl-bye  one  of  the  subs.,  a  poor  Pole,  moved  by  compas 
sion  and  the  hope  of  reward,  cautiously  invited  us  to  come 
into  his  den.  He  spoke  a  very  little  German  and  a  little 
Latin  (Pottinger  was  an  Oxford  man,  and  knew  several  heavy 
classics,  Greek  and  Latin,  perfectly  by  heart).  The  Pole  had 
a  fire,  and  we  began  to  converse.  He  had  heard  of  America, 
and  that  Polish  exiles  had  been  well  treated  there.  I  assured 
him  that  Poles  were  admired  and  cherished  among  us  like 
pet  lambs  among  children,  and  the  adored  of  the  adored. 
Then  I  spoke  of  Russian  oppression,  and  the  Pole,  in  utmost 
secrecy,  produced  a  sabre  which  had  been  borne  under  Kosci- 


168  MEMOIRS. 

usko,  and  showed  us  a  silver  coin — utterly  prohibited — which 
had  been  struck  during  the  brief  period  of  the  Polish  revo 
lution. 

The  Pole  began  to  prepare  his  coffee — for  one.  I  saw 
that  something  must  be  done  to  increase  the  number  of  cups. 
He  took  up  his  book  of  prayers  and  asked  of  what  religion 
we  were.  Of  Pottinger  I  said  contemptuously,  "  He  is  noth 
ing  but  a  heretic,"  but  that  as  for  myself,  I  had  for  some 
time  felt  a  great  inclination  towards  the  Panna — Holy  Virgin 
— and  that  it  would  afford  me  great  pleasure  to  conform  to 
the  Polish  Catholic  Church,  but  that  unfortunately  I  did  not 
understand  the  language.  To  which  he  replied,  that  if  he 
were  to  read  the  morning  service  in  Polish  and  I  would  re 
peat  it  word  by  word,  that  the  Panna  would  count  it  to  my 
credit  just  as  if  I  had.  And  as  I  was  praying  in  good  earnest 
for  a  breakfast,  I  trust  that  it  was  accepted.  Down  on  our 
knees  we  went  and  began  our  orisons. 

"  Leland  !  you humbug !  "  exclaimed  Pottinger. 

"  Go  away,  you  infernal  heretic,  and  don't  disturb  Chris 
tians  at  their  devotions ! "  was  my  devout  reply.  So,  prayers 
concluded,  there  luas  coffee  and  rolls  for  three.  And  so  in 
due  time  the  coach  returned.  I  rewarded  our  host  with  a 
thaler,  and  we  returned  to  Breslau,  of  which  place  I  noted 
that  the  natives  never  ate  anything  but  sweet  cakes  for  their 
first  morning  meal. 

We  stopped  at  Gorlitz,  where  I  asked  a  woman  standing 
in  the  half-doorway  of  the  house  of  Jacob  Bohme  if  that  was 
his  house.  But  she  had  never  heard  of  such  a  man  ! 

Dresden  we  thoroughly  explored,  and  were  at  Leipzig 
during  the  great  annual  fair.  These  fairs,  in  those  days, 
were  sights  to  behold.  Now  they  are  succeeded  by  stupen 
dous  Expositions,  which  are  far  finer  and  inconceivably 
greater,  yet  which  to  me  lack  that  kind  of  gypsy,  side-show, 
droll,  old-fashioned  attraction  of  the  ancient  gatherings, 
even  as  Barnum's  Colossal  Moral  Show  of  half-a-dozen  cir 
cuses  at  once  and  twenty-five  elephants  does  not  amuse  any- 


STUDENT   LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE.        169 

body  as  the  old  clown  in  the  ring  and  one  elephant  did  of 
yore. 

Thence  to  Berlin,  where  we  were  received  with  joy  by  the 
American  students,  who  knew  all  about  one  another  all  over 
Germany.  I  very  much  enjoyed  the  great  art  gallery,  and  the 
conversation  of  those  who,  like  myself,  followed  lectures  on 
aesthetics  and  the  history  of  art.  Thence  to  Magdeburg  and 
Hanover,  Dusseldorf — to  cut  it  short,  Holland  and  the  chief 
cities  in  Belgium. 

I  noted  one  little  change  of  custom  in  Berlin.  In  South 
Germany  it  was  a  common  custom  for  students,  when  calling 
on  a  friend,  to  bring  and  leave  generally  a  small  bouquet. 
When  I  did  this  in  Berlin  my  friends  were  astonished  at  it. 
This  was  an  old  Italian  custom,  as  we  may  read  in  the  beau 
tiful  One  Hundred  and  Fifty  Brindisi  or  Toasts  of  Minto. 

"  Porto  a  voi  un  fior  novello, 
Ed,  oh  come  vago  e  bello  ! " 

In  1847  even  a  very  respectable  hotel  in  Holland  was  in 
any  city  quite  like  one  of  two  centuries  before.  You  entered 
a  long  antiquely-brown  room,  traversed  full  length  by  a  table. 
Before  every  chair  was  placed  a  little  metallic  dish  with  hot 
coals,  and  a  churchwarden  pipe  was  brought  to  every  visitor 
at  once  without  awaiting  orders.  The  stolid,  literal,  me 
chanical  action  of  all  the  people's  minds  was  then  wonderful. 
An  average  German  peasant  was  a  genius  compared  to  these 
fresh,  rosy-fair,  well-clad  Hollanders.  It  was  to  me  a  new 
phase  of  human  happiness  in  imbecility,  or  rather  in  undis 
turbed  routine ;  for  it  is  written  that  no  bird  can  fly  like  a 
bullet  and  doze  or  sleep  sweetly  at  the  same  time.  Yet,  as 
from  the  Huns,  the  most  hideous  wretches  in  the  world, 
there  arose  by  intermixture  the  Hungarians,  who  are  per 
haps  the  handsomest,  so  from  the  Knickerbocker  Dutch 
sprang  the  wide-awake  New  Yorkers  !  The  galleries  in  Hol 
land  and  Belgium  were  to  me  joys  unutterable  and  as  the 
glory  of  life  itself.  Munich  and  Thiersch  still  inspired  me ; 


170  MEMOIRS. 

I  seemed  to  have  found  a  destiny  in  aesthetics  or  art,  or  what 
had  been  wanting  in  Princeton ;  that  is,  how  the  beautiful 
entered  into  life  and  was  developed  in  history  and  made  itself 
felt  in  all  that  was  worth  anything  at  all.  Modern  English 
writers  on  this  subject — with  exceptions  like  that  of  J.  A. 
Symonds,  whose  Essays  I  cannot  commend  too  highly — are 
in  the  same  relation  to  its  grand  truth  and  higher  inspiration 
as  Emerson  and  Carlyle  to  Pantheism  in  its  mightiest  early 
forms.  For  several  years  the  actual  mastery  of  aesthetics 
gave  me  great  comfort,  and  advanced  me  marvellously  in 
thought  to  wider  and  far  higher  regions. 

I  forget  where  I  parted  with  Pottinger ;  all  that  I  can  re 
member  was,  that  early  in  November  I  arrived  alone  in  Paris, 
going  to  some  small  hotel  or  other,  and  that  as  all  the  fa 
tigues  of  the  past  many  weeks  of  weary  travel  seemed  to 
come  upon  me  all  at  once,  I  went  to  bed,  and  never  left  the 
house  till  four  o'clock  p.  M.  the  next  day.  On  the  next  I 
found  my  way  into  the  Latin  Quarter,  and  secured  a  not  very 
superior  room  in  the  Place  Saint-Michel,  near  the  Ecole  de 
Medecine,  to  which  I  moved  my  luggage. 

I  was  very  much  astonished,  while  sitting  alone  and 
rather  blue  and  overcast  in  my  room,  at  the  sudden  entrance 
of  a  second  cousin  of  mine  named  Frank  Fisher,  who  was 
studying  medicine  in  Paris.  He  had  by  some  odd  chance 
seen  my  name  registered  in  the  newspapers  as  having  arrived 
at  the  hotel,  and  lost  no  time  in  looking  me  up.  He  lived 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Seine  in  the  Boule  Rouge,  near  the 
Rue  Holder,  a  famous  happy  hunting-ground  for  les  biches — 
I  mean  kids  or  the  very  dear.  I  must  go  forthwith  to  his 
quarters  and  dine,  which  I  did,  and  so  my  introduction  to 
Paris  was  fairly  begun. 

I  attended  at  the  College  Louis  le  Grand,  and  at  the 
Sorbonne,  all  or  any  lectures  by  everybody,  including  a  very 
dull  series  on  German  literature  by  Philarete  Chasles.  I 
read  books.  Inter  alia,  I  went  through  Dante's  "  Inferno  " 
in  Italian  aided  by  Rivarol's  translation,  of  which  I  possessed 


STUDENT  LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE.        171 

the  very  copy  stamped  with  the  royal  arms,  and  containing 
the  author's  autograph,  which  had  been  presented  to  the 
King.  I  picked  it  up  on  the  Quai  for  a  franc,  for  which 
sum  I  also  obtained  a  first  edition  of  Jfehtsine,  which  Mr. 
Andrew  Lang  has  described  as  such  a  delightful  rarity.  And 
I  also  ran  a  great  deal  about  town.  I  saw  Eachel,  and  Fre 
deric  Lemaitre,  and  Mile.  Dejazet,  and  many  more  at  the 
great  theatres,  and  attended  assiduously  at  Bobinot's,  which 
was  a  very  small  theatre  in  the  Q.uartier  Latin,  frequented 
entirely  by  students  and  grisettes.  I  went  to  many  a  ball, 
both  great  and  small,  including  the  masked  ones  of  the 
Grand  Opera,  and  other  theatres,  at  which  there  was  dissipa 
tion  and  diablerie  enough  to  satisfy  the  most  ardent  imagina 
tion,  ending  with  the  grande  ronde  infernale.  I  made  many 
acquaintances,  and  if  they  were  not  by  any  means  all  highly 
respectable,  they  were  at  least  generally  very  singular  or  noto 
rious.  One  day  I  would  dine  at  a  place  outside  the  Barrier, 
where  we  had  a  plain  but  fairly  good  dinner  for  a  franc,  vin 
compris,  and  where  the  honoured  guest  at  the  head  of  the 
table  was  the  chef  des  claqueurs  or  head  of  the  paid  applauders 
at  all  the  theatres.  Then  it  would  be  at  a  private  table-d'hote 
of  lorettes,  where  there  was  after  dinner  a  little  private  card- 
playing.  I  heard  afterwards  that  two  or  three  unprincipled 
gamblers  found  their  way  into  this  nest  of  poor  little  inno 
cents  and  swindled  them  out  of  all  their  money.  When  I 
was  well  in  funds  I  would  dine  at  Magny's,  where,  in  those 
days,  one  could  get  such  a  dinner  for  ten  francs  as  fifty 
would  not  now  purchase.  When  au  sec,  I  fed  at  Flictoteau's 
—we  called  him  Vempoisonneur — where  hundreds  of  students 
got  a  meal  of  three  courses  with  half  a  bottle  of  ordinaire, 
and  not  so  bad  either,  for  thirty  sous. 

It  happened  one  night  at  Bobinot's  that  I  sat  in  the  front 
row  of  the  stage-box,  and  by  me  a  very  pretty,  modest,  and 
respectable  young  girl,  with  her  elder  relations  or  friends. 
How  it  happened  I  do  not  know,  but  they  all  went  out,  leav 
ing  the  young  lady  by  me,  and  I  did  not  speak  to  her. 


172  MEMOIRS. 

Which  "  point "  was  at  once  seized  by  the  house.  The 
pit,  as  if  moved  by  one  diabolical  inspiration,  began  to  roar, 
"77  Pembrasscra!"  (He  will  kiss  her),  to  which  the  gallery 
replied,  "11  ne  Vembrassera  pas." 

So  they  kept  it  up  and  down  alternately  like  see-sawing, 
to  an  intonation ;  and  be  it  remarked,  by  the  way,  that  in 
French  such  a  monotonous  bore  is  known  as  a  scie  or  saw,  as 
may  be  read  in  my  romance  in  the  French  tongue  entitled 
Le  Lutin  du  Chdteau,  which  was,  I  regret  to  say,  refused  by 
Hachette  the  publisher  on  account  of  its  freedom  from  strait- 
laced,  blue-nosed,  Puritanical  conventionalism,  albeit  he 
praised  its  literary  merit  and  style,  as  did  sundry  other 
French  scholars,  if  I  may  say  it — who  should  not ! 

I  saw  that  something  must  be  done ;  so,  rising,  I  waved 
my  glove,  and  there  was  dead  silence.  Then  I  began  at  the 
top  of  my  voice,  in  impassioned  style  in  German,  an  address 
about  matters  and  things  in  general,  intermingled  with  in 
sane  quotations  from  Latin,  Slavonian,  anything.  A  change 
came  o'er  the  spirit  of  the  dream  of  my  auditors,  till  at  last 
they  "  took,"  and  gave  me  three  cheers.  I  had  sold  the 
house ! 

There  was  in  the  Rue  do  la  Harpe  a  house  called  the 
H6tel  de  Luxembourg.  It  was  the  fragment  of  a  very  old 
palace  which  had  borne  that  name.  It  had  still  a  magnifi 
cent  Renaissance  staircase,  which  bore  witness  to  its  former 
glory.  Washington  Irving,  in  one  of  his  earlier  tales,  de 
scribes  this  very  house  and  the  rooms  which  I  occupied  in  it 
so  accurately,  that  I  think  he  must  have  dwelt  there.  He 
tells  that  a  student  once,  during  the  Revolution,  finding  a 
young  lady  in  the  street,  took  her  home  with  him  to  that 
house.  She  had  a  black  ribbon  round  her  neck.  He 
twitched  it  away,  when — off  fell  her  head.  She  had  been 
guillotined,  and  revived  by  sorcery. 

I  soon  removed  to  this  house,  where  I  had  two  very  good- 
sized  rooms.  In  the  same  establishment  dwelt  a  small  actress 
or  two,  and  divers  students,  or  men  who  were  extremely  busy 


STUDENT   LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE.        173 

all  the  winter  in  plotting  a  revolution.  It  was  considered  as 
a  nest  of  rather  doubtful  and  desperate  characters,  and  an 
American  carabin  or  student  of  medicine  told  me  of  another 
who  had  fled  from  the  establishment  after  a  few  days'  expe 
rience,  "  for  fear  lest  he  should  have  his  throat  cut."  But 
this  was  very  silly,  for  none  of  -us  would  have  cut  anybody's 
throat  for  any  consideration.  Some  time  ago  I  read  the 
"  Memoirs  of  Claude,"  who  was  the  head  of  police  in  Paris 
during  my  time,  and  I  was  quite  startled  to  find  how  many 
of  the  notorieties  chronicled  in  his  experiences  had  been 
known  to  me  personally.  As,  for  instance,  Madame  Marie 
Farcey,  who  he  declares  had  a  heart  of  gold,  and  with  whom 
I  had  many  a  curious  conversation.  She  was  a  handsome, 
very  ladylike,  suave  sort  of  a  person,  who  was  never  known 
to  have  an  intrigue  with  any  man,  but  who  was  "  far  and 
away  "  at  the  very  head  of  all  the  immorality  in  Paris,  as  is 
well  known  to  everybody  who  was  deeply  about  town  in  the 
Forties.  Claude  himself  I  never  knew,  and  it  was  to  his 
possible  great  loss ;  for  there  came  a  time  when  I  could,  had 
I  chosen,  have  given  him  information  which  would  have 
kept  him  in  office  and  Louis  Philippe  on  the  throne,  and 
turned  the  whole  course  of  the  events  of  1848,  as  I  will  now 
clearly  and  undeniably  prove. 

I  did  not  live  in  the  Hotel  de  Luxembourg  for  nothing, 
and  I  knew  what  was  going  on,  and  what  was  coming,  and 
that  there  was  to  be  the  devil  to  pay.  Claude  tells  us  in  his 
"  Memoirs  "  that  the  revolution  of  February  24  took  him  so 
much  by  surprise  that  he  had  only  three  hours'  previous  no 
tice  of  it,  and  really  not  time  to  remove  his  office  furniture. 
Xow,  one  month  before  it  burst  out  I  wrote  home  to  my 
brother  that  we  were  to  have  a  revolution  on  the  24th  of 
February,  and  that  it  would  certainly  succeed.  Those  who 
would  learn  all  the  true  causes  and  reasons  of  this  may  find 
them  in  my  forthcoming  translation  of  "  Heine's  Letters 
from  Paris,"  with  my  notes.  The  police  of  Paris  were  very 
clever,  but  the  whole  organisation  was  in  so  few  hands,  and 


MEMOIRS. 

we  managed  so  well,  that  they  never  found  us  out.  It  was 
beyond  all  question  the  neatest,  completest,  and  cheapest 
revolution  ever  executed.  Lamartine  himself  was  not  al 
lowed  to  know  anything  about  it  till  he  was  wanted  for 
President.  And  all  over  the  Latin  Quarter,  on  our  side  of 
the  river,  in  cafes  and  balls  and  in  shops,  and  talking  to 
everybody,  went  the  mysterious  dwellers  of  the  Hotel  do 
Luxembourg,  sounding  public  opinion  and  gathering  signs 
and  omens,  and  making  recruits  and  laying  trains,  which, 
when  fired,  caused  explosions  all  over  Europe,  and  sounds 
which  still  live  in  history.  And  all  the  work  was  duly  re 
ported  at  head-quarters.  The  great  secret  of  the  success  of 
the  revolution  was  that  it  was  in  the  hands  of  so  few  per 
sons,  who  were  all  absolutely  secret  and  trustworthy.  If 
there  had  been  a  few  more,  the  police  would  have  found  us 
out  to  a  certainty.  One  who  was  suspected  was  "  squared." 

At  last  the  ball  opened.  There  was  the  great  banquet, 
and  the  muttering  storm,  and  angry  mobs,  and  small  emeuies. 
There  is  a  mere  alley — I  forget  its  name — on  the  right  bank, 
which  runs  down  to  the  Seine,  in  which  it  is  said  that  every 
Paris  revolution  has  broken  out.  Standing  at  its  entrance, 
I  saw  three  or  four  shots  fired  and  dark  forms  with  guns 
moving  in  the  alley,  and  then  came  Genei*al  Chaugarnier 
with  his  cavalry  and  made  a  charge,  before  which  I  fled.  I 
had  to  dodge  more  than  one  of  these  charges  during  the  day. 
Before  dark  the  rioting  was  general,  and  barricades  were 
going  up.  The  great  storm-bell  of  Notre  Dame  rung  all 
night  long. 

The  next  morning  I  rose,  and  telling  Leonard  Field,  who 
lived  in  the  same  hotel  with  me,  that  I  was  going  to  work  in 
earnest,  loaded  a  pair  of  duelling-pistols,  tied  a  sash  round 
my  waist  en  revolutionnaire,  and  with  him  went  forth  to  busi 
ness.  First  I  went  to  the  Cafe  Rotonde,  hard  by,  and  got 
my  breakfast.  Then  I  sallied  forth,  and  found  in  the  Rue 
de  la  Harpe  a  gang  of  fifty  insurgents,  who  had  arms  and  a 
crowbar,  but  who  wanted  a  leader.  Seeing  that  I  was  one  of 


STUDENT  LIFE   AND   TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE.        175 

them,  one  said  to  me,  "  Sir,  where  shall  we  make  a  barri 
cade  ?  "  I  replied  that  there  was  one  already  to  the  right 
and  another  farther  down,  but  that  a  third  close  at  hand  was 
open.  Without  a  word  they  handed  me  the  crowbar,  and  I 
prized  up  the  stones  out  of  the  pavement,  while  they  under 
took  the  harder  work  of  piling  them  up.  In  a  few  minutes 
we  had  a  solid  wall  eight  feet  high.  Field  had  on  light  kid 
gloves,  which  formed  an  amusing  contrast  to  his  occupation. 
Then  remembering  that  there  was  a  defenceless  spot  some 
where  else,  I  marched  my  troop  thither,  and  built  another 
barricade — all  in  grim  earnest  without  talking. 

I  forgot  to  say  that  on  the  previous  day  I  had  witnessed 
a  marvellously  dramatic  scene  in  the  Faubourg  Saint- An- 
toine,  by  the  market-house.  There  was  across  it  an  immense 
barricade,  made  of  literally  everything — old  beds,  waggons, 
stones,  and  rubbish — and  it  was  guarded  by  a  dense  crowd  of 
insurgents,  armed  or  unarmed,  of  whom  I  was  one.  All 
around  were  at  least  three  thousand  people  singing  the  Mar 
seillaise  and  the  Chant  des  Girondins.  There  was  a  charge 
of  infantry,  a  discharge  of  muskets,  and  fifteen  fell  dead, 
some  almost  touching  me,  while  the  mob  around  never  ceased 
their  singing,  and  the  sounds  of  that  tremendous  and  ter 
rible  chorus  mingled  with  the  dying  groans  and  cries  of  the 
victims  and  the  great  roar  of  the  bell  of  Xotre  Dame.  It 
was  like  a  scene  in  the  opera.  This  very  barricade  has  been 
described  by  Victor  Hugo  in  detail,  but  not  all  which  took 
place  there,  the  whole  scene  being,  in  fact,  far  more  dramatic 
or  picturesque  than  he  supposed  it  to  have  been. 

It  seemed  to  be  predestined  that  I  should  see  every  great 
event  in  that  drama,  from  the  charge  of  Changarnier  down 
to  the  very  end,  and  I  hereby  declare  that  on  my  honour  I  set 
forth  exactly  what  I  saw  with  my  own  eyes,  without  a  shade 
of  colour  off  the  truth. 

There  was  a  garcon  named  Edouard,  who  always  waited 
on  me  in  the  Cafe  Rotonde.  While  I  was  working  for  life 
at  my  second  barricade,  he  came  out  holding  a  napkin,  and 


176  MEMOIRS. 

examining  my  labour  critically,  waved  it,  exclaimed  approv 
ingly,  "  Tres  Men,  Citoyen  Charles — tres  Men  !  "  It  was  his 
little  joke  for  some  days  after  to  call  me  Citoyen  Charles. 

Returning  down  the  Rue  de  la  Harpe  before  our  house, 
my  landlady  exclaimed  to  me  in  alarm,  "  Hide  your  pistols  ! 
there  is  a  mouchard  (spy  of  the  police)  following  you."  I 
believe  that  I,  my  blood  being  up,  said  something  to  the 
effect  that  if  she  would  point  him  out  I  would  shoot  him 
forthwith,  but  the  mouchard  had  vanished.  We  had  all  got 
into  cool  earnestness  by  that  time  as  regards  shooting,  having 
been  in  it  constantly  for  three  days. 

Over  the  barricade  came  sprawling  a  tall  ungainly  red- 
haired  Yankee,  a  student  of  medicine,  whom  I  had  met  be 
fore,  and  who  began  to  question  me  as  to  what  I  was  doing. 
To  which  I  replied,  "  What  the  devil  do  you  want  here,  any 
how?"  not  being  in  a  mood  to  be  trifled  with.  To  which 
he  replied,  "Nawthin',  only  a  kinder  lookin'  reound.  But 

what  on  airth "  "But  are  you  for  us,  or  against?"  I 

cried.  "  Wall,  I  ain't  on  no  side."  "  See  here  !  "  I  cried  in 
a  rage ;  "  those  who  are  not  for  us  are  against  us.  Any  one 
of  those  fellows  you  see  round  here  would  shoot  you  at  once 
if  I  told  him  to,  and  if  you  don't  clear  out  in  double  quick 
time,  by  God  I  will ! "  And  at  this  he  made  himself  scarce 
forthwith,  "  nor  does  he  come  again  into  this  story." 

Then  I  went  down  the  street,  and  as  a  large  supply  of 
ammunition  came  to  us  from  our  friends,  with  the  aid  of  a 
student  of  the  Ecole  Polytechnique,  I  distributed  it  to  the 
mob.  I  had  principally  boxes  of  percussion-caps  to  give.  I 
mention  this  because  that  young  man  has  gone  into  history 
for  it,  and  I  have  as  good  a  right  to  a  share  in  this  extremely 
small  exploit  as  he.  Besides,  though  not  wounded  by  the 
foe,  I  got  a  bad  cut  on  my  hand  from  a  sharp  paving-stone, 
and  its  scar  lasted  for  many  years. 

I  had  that  day  many  a  chance  to  knock  over  a  piou-piou 
or  shoot  a  soldier,  as  Field  said,  but  I  must  confess  that  I 
felt  an  invincible  repugnance  to  do  so.  The  poor  devils 


STUDENT   LIFE  AND  TRAVEL   IN   EUROPE.        177 

were,  after  all,  only  fighting  unwillingly  against  us,  and  I 
well  knew  that  unless  they  came  over  to  our  side  all  would 
be  up  with  us.  Therefore  it  was  our  policy  to  spare  them  as 
much  as  possible.  I  owe  it  to  Field  to  state  that  through  all 
the  stirring  scenes  of  the  Kevolution  he  displayed  great  calm 
ness  and  courage. 

All  at  once  we  heard  a  terrible  outcry  down  the  street. 
There  was  a  tremendous  massing  of  soldiers  there,  and  to  de 
fend  that  barricade  meant  death  to  all  defenders.  I  confess 
that  I  hesitated  one  instant,  and  than  rushed  headlong  to 
join  the  fight.  Merciful  God  !  the  troops  had  fraternised 
with  us,  and  they  were  handing  over  their  muskets  to  the 
mob,  who  were  firing  them  in  the  air. 

The  scene  was  terribly  moving.  My  men,  who  a  minute 
before  had  expected  to  be  shot,  rushed  up,  embraced  and 
kissed  the  soldiers,  wept  like  children — in  short,  everybody 
kissed  and  embraced  everybody  else,  and  all  my  warriors  got 
guns,  and  therewith  I  dismissed  them,  for  I  knew  that  the 
war  was  now  about  at  an  end. 

There  was  a  German-French  student  named  Lenoir,  and 
he,  with  Field  and  I,  hearing  that  there  was  sharp  work  at 
the  Tuileries,  started  thither  in  haste.  And  truly  enough, 
when  we  got  there,  the  very  devil  was  loose,  with  guns  firing 
and  the  guard-house  all  in  a  blaze.  The  door  was  burst 
open,  and  Field  and  I  were  among  the  very  first  who  entered. 
AVe  behaved  very  well,  and  did  not  steal  anything.  I  re 
member  that  there  was  a  great  pile  of  plate  and  jewellery 
soon  laid  by  the  door. 

I  went  into  the  throne-room.  There  was  a  great  silver 
inkstand  on  the  table,  paper  and  pens,  and  we  wro'te,  "  Ke- 
spect  Property  ! "  "  Liberty  for  Italy  and  Hungary  !  "  and 
hung  the  papers  up  around  the  room.  I  wrote  one  or  two 
myself,  and  touched  the  inkstand  for  luck,  in  case  I  should 
ever  write  about  the  event. 

It  was  a  great  and  indeed  a  very  touching  and  beautiful 
sight,  for  all  present  were  inspired  with  a  feeling  like  that 


178  MEMOIRS. 

of  men  who  have  passed  a  terrible,  racking  crisis.  Nous 
avons  vaincu !  Yes,  we  had  conquered.  And  the  Revolu 
tion  had  marched  sternly  on  through  years  of  discontent 
unto  the  year  of  aggravation,  Forty-Eight,  when  there  was 
thunder  all  round  in  Europe — and  after  all,  France  at  one 
desperate  bound  had  again  placed  herself  in  the  van !  And 
it  was  first  decided  by  the  taking  of  the  Tuileries ! 

Let  me  dwell  an  instant  on  some  minor  incidents.  Many 
of  the  insurgents  had  been  all  night  without  food.  The 
royal  dinner  was  cooking  in  the  kitchen,  and  it  was  droll  to 
see  the  men  helping  themselves  and  walking  off  with  the 
chickens  and  joints  on  their  bayonets.  I  had  never  seen  a 
royal  kitchen  before.  Soon  all  along  the  street  loafers  were 
seen  with  jars  of  preserved  cherries,  &c.,  emptying  them  into 
their  caps.  I  went  into  the  burning  guard-house.  A  savage 
fellow  oifered  me  a  great  tin  pail,  containing  about  two  gal 
lons  of  wine,  which  he  offered  me  to  drink.  I  was  very 
thirsty,  but  I  had  a  scruple  against  plunder.  Grasping  his 
sword,  he  cried,  "  Buvez,  citoyen  ;  c*est  clu  vin  royal''1  Xot 
wishing  to  have  a  duel  a  Voutrance  with  a  fellow-patriot,  and, 
as  I  said,  being  thirsty,  I  took  a  good  long  pull.  We  mutu 
ally  winked  and  smiled.  He  took  a  pull  also  to  my  health 
and  Liberty.  We  botli  "  pulled." 

I  forgot  to  mention  how  my  cohort  had  partially  armed 
themselves  that  morning.  They  burst  into  every  house  and 
carried  off  all  the  arms  they  could  find,  and  then  wrote  in 
chalk  over  the  doors — "  Armes  donnees"  The  Musee  Cluny 
was  very  near  my  hotel  and  I  saw  it  plundered.  Such  a 
sight !  I  saw  one  vagabond  on  a  fine  stolen  horse,  with  a 
mediaeval  helmet  on  his  head,  a  lance  in  his  hand,  and  a  six- 
feet  double-handed  sword  or  flamberg  hanging  behind  his 
back.  He  appeared  to  be  quite  drunk,  and  reared  about  in 
eccentric  gambades.  This  genius  of  Freedom  reappeared  at 
the  Tuileries.  Mortal  man  was  never  under  such  tempta 
tion  to  steal  as  I  was — just  one  fifteenth-century  poignard  as 
a  souvenir — from  that  Museum — in  fact,  it  was  my  duty  at 


STUDENT   LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN   EUROPE.        179 

that  instant  to  do  so,  whispered  the  tempter  in  my  ear.  But 
I  resisted  ;  and  lo !  it  came  to  pass  in  later  years  that  I  be 
came  possessed,  for  a  mere  trifle,  in  Dresden,  of  the  court 
dagger,  in  exquisite  carved  ivory,  which  was  originally  made 
for  Francis  II.  of  France,  and  which  has  been  declared  by 
competent  authority  to  be  authentic.  Owing  to  his  short 
reign  there  are  very  few  relics  of  this  monarch. 

Some  of  the  blackguards  in  the  mob  drew  out  the  royal 
carriages,  set  fire  to  them,  and  rolled  them  gaily  along  the 
quai. 

A  noble-looking  very  old  gentleman  in  military  costume 
spoke  to  me  before  the  Tuileries,  and  saying  that  he  had  seen 
all  of  the  old  Revolution  and  Napoleon's  wars,  actually  with 
tears  in  his  eyes  implored  me  to  use  my  influence  to  prevent 
any  plundering.  "  Respect  ez  la  properte."  There  were  very 
few  gentlemen  indeed  among  the  insurgents.  I  only  observed 
two  or  three  in  our  quarter,  and  they  were  all  from  our  hotel, 
or  rather  lodgings.  But  the  next  day  every  swell  in  Paris 
came  out' as  an  insurgent.  They  had  all  worked  at  barricades 
— so  they  said.  I  certainly  had  not  seen  any  of  them  at 
work. 

That  afternoon  I  strolled  about  with  Field.  We  came  to 
a  barricade.  A  very  pretty  girl  guarded  it  with  a  sword.  She 
sternly  demanded  the  parole  or  countersign.  I  caught  hold 
of  her  and  kissed  her,  and  showed  my  pistols.  She  laughed. 
As  I  was  armed  with  dirk  and  pistols,  wore  a  sash,  and  was 
unmistakably  a  Latin  Quarter  etudiant,  as  shown  by  long 
hair,  rakish  cap  on  one  side,  red  neck-tie,  and  single  eye 
glass,  I  was  everywhere  treated  as  a  man  and  brother,  friend 
and  equal,  warrior,  and — by  the  girls — almost  like  a  first- 
cousin.  Field  shared  the  glory,  of  course.  And  we  made  a 
great  deal  out  of  it,  and  were  thought  all  the  more  of  in  con 
sequence.  Vive  la  jeunesse ! 

Coming  to  a  corner,  we  heard  three  or  four  musket-shots. 
We  turned  the  corner,  and  saw  a  man  lying  dead  or  dying  in 
the  last  quiver,  while  at  his  head  there  was  at  once  placed  a 


180  MEMOIRS. 

stick  with  a  paper  on  it,  on  which  was  written  with  lead- 
pencil,  "Mort  aux  voleurs ! " 

The  day  before,  one  insurgent  had  offered  me  a  beautiful 
old  silver-mounted  sword  for  one  of  my  pistols,  fire-arms  be 
ing  so  much  in  demand,  but  I  declined  the  offer. 

The  day  after,  I  went  into  a  cafe.  There  were  some  stu 
dents  there  who  had  laid  their  arms  on  a  table.  There  was  a 
very  notorious  little  lorette,  known  as  Pochardinette,  who  was 
so  called  because  she  was  always  half-tipsy.  She  was  even 
noted  in  a  popular  song  as — 

"  La  Pochardinette, 
Qui  ne  salt  refuser 
Ni  la  ponche  a  pleine  verre, 
Ni  sa  bouche  a  baiter." 

Pochardinette  picked  up  a  horse-pistol,  when  its  owner 
cried,  "  Let  that  be  !  That  is  not  the  kind  of  weapon  which 
you  are  accustomed  to  manage  ! "  I  stared  at  him  with  re 
spect,  for  he  had  actually  translated  into  French  an  epigram 
by  Jacopo  Sannazar,  word  for  word ! 

I  should  here  mention  that  on  the  24th  there  was  actu 
ally  a  period  of  two  hours  during  which  France  had  no  Gov 
ernment — that  is,  none  that  it  knew  of.  Then  there  appeared 
on  the  walls  all  at  once  small  placards  giving  the  list  of  names 
of  the  Gouvernement  Provisoire.  Now,  during  this  period  of 
suspense  there  appeared  at  the  H6tel  de  Ville  a  mysterious 
stranger;  a  small,  bustling,  active  individual,  who  came  in 
and  announced  that  a  new  Government  had  been  formed, 
that  he  himself  had  been  appointed  Minister,  that  France 
expected  every  man  to  do  his  duty,  and  that  no  one  should 
lose  their  places  who  conformed  to  his  orders.  "  I  appoint," 
he  said,  "  So-and-so  to  take  command  of  Vincennes.  Here, 
you — Chose!  notify  him  at  once  and  send  orders.  I  believe 
that  Tcl-et-tel  had  better  take  Marseilles.  Do  any  of  you  fel 
lows  know  of  a  good  governor  for  Mauritius?"  So  he  gov 
erned  France  for  half-an-hour  and  then  disappeared,  and 
nobody  ever  knew  to  this  day  who  this  stupendous  joker  was. 


STUDENT  LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE.        181 

A  full  account  of  it  all  appeared  some  time  after,  and  the 
cream  of  the  joke  was  that  some  of  his  appointed  ones  con 
trived  to  keep  their  places.  This  brief  dynasty  has  not  been 
recorded  in  any  work  save  this ! 

It  was  a  droll  fact  that  I  had,  the  year  before,  at  Heidel 
berg,  drawn  a  picture  of  myself  as  an  insurgent  at  a  barri 
cade,  and  written  under  it,  "  The  Boy  of  the  Barricades."  I 
had  long  had  a  strange  presentiment  as  to  this  event.  I  gave 
the  picture  to  Peter  A.  Porter,  then  a  student,  and  owner  of 
a  singular  piece  of  property — that  is,  Niagara  Falls,  or  at 
least  Goat  Island  and  more  or  less  of  the  American  side. 
Some  time  after  the  24th  he  showed  me  this  picture  in  Paris. 
He  himself,  I  have  heard,  died  fighting  bravely  in  our  Civil 
War.  His  men  were  so  much  attached  to  him  that  they 
made,  to  recover  his  body,  a  special  sally,  in  which  twelve  of 
them  were  killed.  He  was  Ion  compagnon,  very  pleasant,  and 
gifted  with  a  very  original,  quaint  humour. 

If  our  ungrateful  temporary  stepmother,  France,  did  not 
know  it,  at  least  the  waiters  in  the  cafes,  shopkeepers,  and 
other  people  in  the  Latin  Quarter  were  aware  that  Field  and 
I  were  among  the  extremely  small  and  select  number  of  gen 
tlemen  who  had  operated  at  the  barricades  for  the  health  of 
Freedom,  and  for  some  time  we  never  entered  a  restaurant 
without  hearing  admiring  exclamations  from  the  respectful 
waiters  of  "Ces  sont  les  Americains  I "  or  "Les  Anglais." 
And  indeed,  to  a  small  degree,  I  even  made  a  legendary  local 
impression ;  for  a  friend  of  mine  who  went  from  Philadel 
phia  to  Paris  two  years  later,  reported  that  I  was  still  in  the 
memory  of  the  Quarter  as  associated  with  the  Revolution  and 
life  in  general.  One  incident  was  indeed  of  a  character 
which  French  students  would  not  forget.  I  had  among  my 
many  friends,  reputable  and  demi-reputable,  a  rather  remark 
able  lorette  named  Maria,  whose  face  was  the  very  replica  of 
that  of  the  Laughing  Faun  of  the  Louvre — or,  if  one  can 
conceive  it,  of  a  very  pretty  "  white  nigger."  This  young 
lady  being  either  ennuyee  or  frightened  by  the  roar  of  mus- 
9 


182  MEMOIRS. 

ketry — probably  the  former — and  knowing  that  I  was  a  Rev 
olutionist  and  at  work,  conceived  the  eccentric  idea  of  hiring 
a  coach,  just  when  the  fighting  was  at  the  worst,  and  driving 
over  from  the  Rue  Holder  to  visit  me.  Which  she  actually 
did.  When  she  came  to  a  barricade,  she  gave  five  francs  to 
the  champions  of  liberty,  and  told  them  she  was  bearing  im 
portant  political  orders  to  one  of  their  leaders.  Then  the 
warriors  would  unharness  the  horses,  lift  the  carriage  and 
beasts  somehow  over  the  barricade,  re-harness,  hurrah,  and 
"Adieu,  madame!  Vive  la  liberte!"  And  so,  amid  bullets 
and  cheers,  and  death-stroke,  and  powder-smoke — hinc  et 
inde  tnors  et  luctus — Maria  came  to  my  door  in  a  carriage, 
and  found  me  out  with  a  vengeance — for  I  was  revelling  at 
the  time  in  the  royal  halls  of  the  Bourbons,  or  at  least  drink 
ing  wine  out  of  a  tin  pail  in  the  guard-house,  whereby  I  escaped 
the  expense  of  a  truffled  champagne  dinner  at  Magny's — 
while  the  young  lady  was  about  fifty  francs  out  of  pocket  by 
her  little  drive,  probably  the  only  one  taken  that  day  in 
Paris.  But  she  had  a  fearfully  jolly  time  of  it,  and  saw  the 
way  that  guns  were  fired  to  perfection.  This,  too,  became 
one  of  the  published  wonders  of  the  day,  and  a  local  legend 
of  renown. 

Of  course  all  these  proceedings  put  an  end  to  lectures  and 
study  for  the  time.  Then  Mr.  Goodrich,  our  Consul,  as  I 
have  before  said,  organised  a  deputation  of  Americans  in 
Paris  to  go  and  congratulate  the  new  Gouvermment  Pro- 
visoire  on  the  new  Republic,  of  which  I  was  one,  and  we 
saw  all  the  great  men,  and  Arago  made  us  a  speech.  Unfor 
tunately  all  the  bankers  stopped  paying  money,  and  I  had  to 
live  principally  on  credit,  or  sailed  rather  close  to  it,  until  I 
could  write  to  my  father  and  get  a  draft  on  London. 

But  when  the  Revolution  of  June  was  coming,  I  deter- 

~  I 

mined  to  leave  Paris.  I  had  no  sympathy  for  the  Socialists, 
and  I  knew  very  well  that  neither  the  new  Government,  nor 
the  still  newer  Louis  Napoleon,  who  was  looming  up  so  dan 
gerously  behind  it,  needed  my  small  aid.  There  was  a  regu- 


STUDENT  LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE.        183 

lation  in  those  days  that  every  foreign  resident  on  leaving 
Paris  must  give  twenty-four  hours'  notice  to  the  police  before 
he  could  obtain  his  passport.  But  when  I  applied  for  mine, 
it  was  handed  out  at  once  "  over  the  counter,"  with  a  smile 
and  a  wink,  as  if  unto  one  who  was  merrily  well  known,  with 
an  intimation  that  they  were  rather  glad  that  I  was  going, 
and  would  do  everything  to  facilitate  my  departure.  I  sus 
pect  that  my  dossier  must  have  been  interesting  reading ! 
M.  Claude,  or  his  successor,  was  probably  of  the  same  mind 
regarding  me  as  the  old  black  preacher  in  Philadelphia  re 
garding  a  certain  convert,  "  De  Lawd  knows  we  don'  want 
no  sitch  bredderin  in  dis  congregation ! " 

So  I  went  to  Rouen  and  saw  the  cathedral  and  churches — 
it  was  a  very  quaint  old  town  then — and  thence  to  Havre, 
where  I  took  passage  on  a  steamboat  for  London.  The  cap 
tain  had  a  very  curious  old  Gnostic-Egyptian  ring,  with  a 
gem  on  which  were  four  animal  heads  in  one,  or  a  chimEera. 
I  explained  what  it  was,  and  that  it  meant  the  year.  But 
the  captain  could  not  rest  till  he  had  got  the  opinion  of  a 
fussy  old  Frenchman,  who,  as  a  doctor,  was  of  course  sup 
posed  to  know  more  than  I.  He  looked  at  it,  and,  with  a 
great  air,  remarked,  "  C'est  grecque  !  "  Then  the  captain  was 
quite  satisfied.  It  was  Greek  ! 

I  went  in  London  to  a  very  modest  hotel,  where  I  was, 
however,  very  comfortable.  In  those  days  a  bottle  of  the 
very  vilest  claret  conceivable,  and  far  worse  than  "  Glad 
stone,"  cost  four  or  five  shillings ;  therefore  I  took  to  pale 
ale.  Ewan  Colquhoun  soon  found  me  out,  and,  under  his 
guidance,  and  that  of  two  or  three  others  whom  I  had  met, 
I  soon  explored  London.  Firstly,  he  took  me  daily  to  his 
house  in  St.  James  Street,  where  I  can  recall  his  mother, 
Mrs.  Colquhoun,  and  father,  and  brothers,  Patrick  and 
James.  Patrick  was  a  remarkable  young  man.  He  had 
graduated  at  Cambridge  and  Heidelberg  and  filled  diplo 
matic  capacities  in  the  East,  and  was  familiar  with  many 
languages  from  Arabic  to  Gaelic,  and  was  the  first  amateur 


184  MEMOIRS. 

light-weight  boxer  in  England,  and  first  sculler  on  the 
Thames,  and  had  translated  and  annotated  the  principal 
compendium  of  Roman  law.  He  took  me  to  see  a  grand 
rowing  match,  where  we  were  in  the  Leander  barge.  So 
here  and  there  I  was  introduced  to  a  great  many  people  of 
the  best  society.  Meanwhile,  with  Ewan,  I  visited  the  Cider 
Cellars,  Evans',  the  Judge  and  Jury  Club,  Cremorne,  and  all 
the  gay  resorts  of  those  days,  not  to  mention  the  museums, 
Tower,  and  everything  down  to  Madame  Tussaud's.  I  went 
down  in  a  diving-bell  in  the  Polytechnic,  and  over  Barclay 
and  Perkins'  Brewery. 

One  night  Colquhoun  and  I  went  to  Drury  Lane,  and, 
after  hearing  Grisi,  Mario,  and  Lablache  together,  saw  the 
great  pas  de  quatre  which  became  a  historical  marvel.  For 
it  was  danced  by  Taglioni,  Cerito,  Carlotta  Grisi,  and  Lucile 
Grahn.  In  after  years,  when  I  talked  with  Taglioni  about 
it,  she  assured  me  that  night  I  had  witnessed  what  the 
world  had  never  seen  since,  the  greatest  and  most  perfect 
execution  conceivable.  For  the  four  great  artists,  moved  by 
rivalry,  were  inspired  to  do  their  best  before  such  an  audience 
as  was  seldom  seen.  Colquhoun  kept  pointing  out  one  ce 
lebrity  after  another  to  me ;  I  verily  believe  that  I  saw  most 
of  the  great  men  and  women  of  the  time.  And  afterwards  I 
saw  a  great  number  in  Parliament. 

There  was  a  rather  distinguished-looking  Frenchman 
very  much  about  town  in  London  while  I  was  there.  He 
was  always  alone,  and  always  dressed  in  a  long,  light  over 
coat.  Wherever  I  went,  to  Cremorne  or  the  Park,  there  he 
was.  When  Louis  Napoleon  came  up  in  the  world  and  I 
saw  his  photograph,  I  at  once  recognised  my  Frenchman. 

There  roomed  next  to  me  in  our  hotel  a  German  from 
Vienna  named  Becker.  He  was  an  opera-singer,  and  the 
newspapers  said  that  he  was  fully  equal  to  the  first  baritone 
of  the  day.  I  forget  who  that  was  :  was  it  Pischek  ?  I  liked 
him  very  much ;  he  was  always  in  my  room,  and  always  sing 
ing  little  bits,  but  I  was  not  much  impressed  by  them,  and 


STUDENT  LIFE   AND  TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE.        185 

once  told  him  that  I  believed  that  I  could  sing  as  loudly  as  he. 
He  never  said  a  word,  but  at  once  let  out  his  whole  voice  in 
a  tremendous  aria.  I  clapped  my  hands  to  my  ears ;  I  verily 
believed  that  he  would  shatter  the  windows !  I  have  heard 
of  a  singer  who  actually  broke  a  goblet  by  vibration,  and  I 
now  believe  that  it  is  possible.  I  was  once  shown  in  the 
Hague  Museum  a  goblet  which  rang  marvellously  in  accom 
paniment  when  one  sang  to  it,  and  have  met  with  others 
like  it. 

I  was  invited  by  a  young  friend  named  Hunt  (a  son  of 
the  great  Chartist),  who  had  been  a  friend  of  mine  in  Hei 
delberg,  where  he  had  taken  his  degree  as  doctor  of  Philoso 
phy,  to  pass  a  week  in  the  country  at  a  charming  old  Eliza 
bethan  place,  said  to  have  been  the  original  Bleak  House. 
Everything  there  was  perfectly  delightful.  There  were  two 
or  three  charming  young  ladies.  I  remember  among  them 
a  Miss  Oliphaunt.  There  was  a  glorious  picnic,  to  which  I 
and  all  walked  eight  miles  and  back.  I  admired  on  this  oc 
casion  for  the  first  time  the  pedestrian  powers  of  English 
girls. 

I  visited  Verulamium  and  St.  Alban's  Abbey,  not  then 
"  restored,"  and  other  beautiful  places.  It  all  seemed  like  a 
fairy-tale,  for  the  charm  of  my  early  reading  came  over  mo 
like  enchantment.  One  night  Hunt  and  I  went  into  a  little 
wayside  inn.  There  were  assembled  a  number  of  peasants — 
hedgers  and  ditchers,  or  such  like.  We  treated  them  to  ale, 
and  they  sang  many  strange  old  songs.  Then  I  was  called 
on,  and  I  sang  "  Sir  Patrick  Spens,"  which  was  well  received. 

I  returned  to  London,  and  found,  to  my  dismay,  that  I 
had  not  enough  money  to  take  me  home  !  I  had  received  a 
bill  of  exchange  on  a  merchant  in  London,  and,  in  my  inno 
cence,  never  dreamed  that  it  constituted  no  claim  on  him 
whatever  for  a  further  supply.  I  called  at  his  office,  saw  his 
son,  who  naturally  informed  me  that  they  could  advance  me 
no  more  money,  but  referred  me  to  his  father.  The  old  gen 
tleman  seemed  to  be  amused,  and  questioned  me  all  about 


MEMOIRS. 

myself.  When  he  found  that  his  Philadelphia  correspondent 
was  very  well  known  to  my  father,  and  that  the  son  of  the 
correspondent  was  a  fellow-student  of  mine  at  Heidelberg 
and  Paris,  he  asked  me  how  much  I  wanted.  When  I  re 
plied,  "  Only  enough  to  pay  my  passage,"  he  replied,  "  Is 
that  all  ?  "  and  at  once  gave  me  the  money.  Then  he  ques 
tioned  me  as  to  my  friends  in  London,  and  said,  "  You  have 
seen  something  of  the  aristocracy,  I  would  like  you  to  see 
some  of  the  business  people."  So  he  invited  me  to  a  dinner 
at  the  Eeform  Club,  to  meet  a  few  friends.  Among  these 
was  a  Mr.  Birch,  son  of  the  celebrated  Alderman  Birch.  He 
had  directed  the  dinner,  being  a  famous  gourmet,  and  Soyer 
had  cooked  it.  That  dinner  cost  my  host  far  more  than  he 
had  made  out  of  me.  We  had  six  kinds  of  choicest  wines, 
which  impressed  me  then. 

Mr.  Birch  was  a  man  of  literary  culture,  and  we  went 
deeply  into  books.  The  next  day  he  sent  me  a  charming 
work  which  he  had  written  on  the  religious  belief  of  Shake 
speare,  in  which  it  was  fairly  proved  that  the  immortal  bard 
had  none.  And  I  was  so  well  pleased  with  England,  that 
I  liked  it  better  than  any  country  I  had  ever  visited. 

In  1870,  when  I  came  to  London,  and  found  my  charac 
ter  of  "  Hans  Breitmann  "  on  three  stages  at  once,  I  received, 
of  course,  a  great  deal  of  attention.  Somebody  said  to  me, 
"  Oh,  of  course ;  you  come  here  well  known,  and  are  made  a 
great  deal  of."  I  replied,  "  Twenty  years  ago  I  came  to 
London  without  a  single  letter  of  introduction,  and  had  only 
two  or  three  student  friends,  and  received  just  as  much  kind 
hospitality."  I  think  that  like  generally  finds  its  like,  so 
long  as  it  is  honest  and  can  pay  its  bills. 

I  left  Portsmouth  for  New  York  in  a  sailing-vessel  or 
packet.  I  could  have  returned  by  steamer,  but  preferred  the 
latter,  as  I  should  now,  if  there  were  any  packets  crossing  the 
ocean.  In  old  times  travel  was  a  pleasure  or  an  art ;  now  it 
is  the  science  of  getting  from  place  to  place  in  the  shortest 
time  possible.  Hence,  with  all  our  patent  Pullman  cars  and 


STUDENT  LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE.        187 

their  dentist's  chairs,  Procrustean  sofas,  and  headlong  pas 
sages,  we  do  not  enjoy  ourselves  as  we  did  when  the  coach 
went  on  the  road  so  slowly  as  to  allow  us  to  see  the  country, 
when  we  halted  often  and  long,  many  a  time  in  curious  old 
villages.  But  "  the  idea  of  dragging  along  in  that  way ! " 
Well,  and  what,  0  tourist,  dost  thou  travel  for  ? 

There  was  on  the  vessel  in  which  I  sailed,  among  the  few 
passengers,  Mrs.  and  Mr.  John  Gilbert,  a  well-known  dra 
matic  couple,  who  were  extremely  agreeable  and  genial,  the 
husband  abounding  in  droll  reminiscences  of  the  stage;  a 
merry  little  German  musician  named  Kreutzer,  son  of  the 
great  composer ;  and  a  young  Englishwoman  with  a  younger 
brother.  I  rather  doubted  the  "  solidity "  of  this  young 
lady.  By-and-bye  it  was  developed  that  the  captain  was  in 
love  with  her.  Out  of  this,  I  have  heard,  came  a  dreadful 
tragedy ;  for  the  love  drove  him  mad,  the  insanity  develop 
ing  itself  on  the  return  voyage.  The  captain  had  to  be  im 
prisoned  in  his  own  state-room,  where  he  committed  suicide  in 
a  terrible  manner  by  tearing  his  throat  open  with  the  point  of 
a  candlestick  or  sconce.  The  second  mate,  who  was  as  coarse 
a  brute  as  a  common  sailor  could  be,  took  command,  and  as 
he  at  once  got  drunk,  and  kept  so,  the  passengers  rose,  con 
fined  him,  and  gave  the  command  to  the  third,  who  was  very 
young. 

"  Thus  woman  is  the  cause  of  fearful  deeds." 

However,  I  freely  admit  that  this  incident  resulted  from 
a  long  voyage,  for  we  were  thirty-five  days  in  going  from 
port  to  port.  In  only  a  week,  with  three  or  four  days'  pre 
liminary  sea-sickness,  there  is  hardly  time  for  "  flirtation  and 
its  consequences."  Nor  was  it  so  much  a  stormy  trip  as  one 
with  long  sunny  calms.  Then  we  hauled  up  Gulf-weed  with 
little  crabs — saw  Portuguese  men-of-war  or  sea-anemones 
sailing  along  like  Cleopatra's  barges  with  purple  sails,  or 
counted  flying-fish.  Apropos  of  this  last  I  have  something 
to  say.  During  my  last  trip  I  once  devoted  an  afternoon  to 
closely  observing  these  bird-like  creatures,  and  very  distinctly 


188  MEMOIRS. 

saw  two  cases  in  which  the  fish  turned  and  flew  against  the 
wind  or  tacked — a  fact  which  has  been  denied. 

One  day  I  saw  a  few  rudder-fish  playing  about  the  stern. 
They  weigh  perhaps  some  six  or  seven  pounds ;  so,  standing 
on  velvet  cushions  in  the  cabin,  I  fished  out  of  the  stern- 
window.  Then  came  a  bite,  and  in  a  second  I  had  my  fish 
flapping  about  on  the  carpet  under  the  table,  to  the  great 
amazement  of  the  steward,  who  had  probably  never  had  a 
live  fish  jump  so  promptly  before  into  his  hands.  And  we 
had  it  for  dinner.  One  day  a  ship  made  to  us  a  signal  of 
distress,  and  sent  a  boat,  saying  that  they  were  completely 
out  of  fuel ;  also  that  their  passengers  consisted  entirely  of 
the  celebrated  Eavel  troupe  of  acrobats  and  actors.  It  would 
have  been  an  experience  to  have  crossed  in  that  packet  with 
their  chief,  Gabriel ! 

Gabriel  Ravel — it  is  one  of  my  brother's  published  tales 
— was  a  good  boxer  as  well  as  a  marvellous  acrobat,  and  he 
could  look  like  what  he  pleased.  One  morning  a  muscular  and 
vain  New  York  swell  saw  in  a  gymnasium  one  whom  he  sup 
posed  to  be  a  very  verdant  New  Jersey  rustic  gaping  about. 
The  swell  exhibited  with  great  pride  his  skill  on  the  parallel 
bars,  horizontal  pole,  ct  cetera,  and  seeing  the  countryman 
absolutely  dumbfounded  with  astonishment,  proposed  to  the 
latter  to  put  on  the  gloves.  "  Jersey "  hardly  seemed  to 
know  what  gloves  were,  but  with  much  trouble  he  was  got 
into  form  and  set  to  milling.  But  though  he  was  as  awk 
ward  as  a  blind  cow,  the  swell  pugilist  could  not  for  a  very 
long  time  get  in  a  blow.  Jersey  dodged  every  hit  "  some 
how  "  in  a  manner  which  seemed  to  be  miraculous.  At  last 
one  told  on  his  chest,  and  it  appeared  to  be  a  stunner,  for 
it  knocked  him  into  the  air,  where  he  turned  a  double  som 
ersault,  and  then  fell  on  his  feet.  And  it  seemed  as  if, 
during  this  flight,  he  had  been  suddenly  inspired  with  a 
knowledge  of  the  manly  art,  for  on  descending,  he  went  at 
the  swell  and  knocked  him  from  time.  It  was  Gabriel  Ravel. 

We  saw  an  iceberg  far  away,  and  lay  off  on  the  Grand 


STUDENT  LIFE  AND  TRAVEL  IN  EUROPE.        189 

Banks  (where  our  steerage  passengers  caught  cod-fish),  and 
beheld  a  water-spout — I  once  saw  two  at  a  time  in  the  Medi 
terranean — and  whales,  which  were  far  commoner  then  than 
now,  it  being  rumoured  that  the  one,  and  no  more,  which  is 
regularly  seen  by  passengers  now  is  a  tame  one  belonging  to 
the  White  Star  or  some  other  line,  which  keeps  him  moored 
in  a  certain  place  on  exhibition ;  also  that  what  Gulf- weed 
there  is  left  is  grown  near  New  York  and  scattered  by  night 
from  certain  boats.  It  may  be  so — this  is  an  artificial  age. 
All  that  remains  is  to  learn  that  the  flying-fish  are  No.  3  salt 
mackerel  set  with  springs,  and  I  am  not  sure  that  I  should 
doubt  even  that. 


IV. 
THE  RETURN   TO    AMERICA. 

1848-1862. 

Home — Studying  law  with  John  Cadwallader — Philadelphia  as  I  found 
it — Richard  B.  Kimball — "  Fusang  " — Literal  reporting  in  German 
— First  experiences  in  magazines  and  newspapers — Father  Matthew 
— Dr.  Rufus  Griswold — Engaged  to  be  married — A  journey  North 
— Colonel  Cotl  and  pistol-practice  with  him — Alfred  Jaell — Editor  of 
Barnum's  Illustrated  News — Dr.  Griswold  and  his  MS. — Bixby's — 
Mr.  Barnum — My  first  books — New  York  society  in  the  early  Fifties 
— Alice  and  Phccbe  Carey — Washington  Irving — Bayard  Taylor — 
N.  P.  Willis — J.  G.  Saxe — H.  C.  Carey — Emily  Schaumberg — I  be 
come  assistant-editor  of  the  Bulletin — George  H.  Bokcr — Cremation 
— Editorial  life — Paternal  enterprise — My  father  renews  his  for 
tune — I  am  married — The  Republican  Convention — First  great  dis 
sension  with  the  South — Translating  Heine — The  lady  in  the  burn 
ing  hotel — The  writing  of  "  Hans  Breitmann's  Barty  " — Change  to 
New  York — Appletons'  Cyclopedia — G.  W.  Ripley  and  Charles  A. 
Dana — Foreign  editing  of  New  York  Times — "  Vanity  Fair  " — The 
Bohemians — Artemus  Ward — Lincoln's  election— The  Civil  War — 
My  political  work  in  the  Knickerbocker — Emancipation — I  become 
sole  editor  of  the  Continental  Magazine — What  I  did  in  18G2  and 
1863  in  aid  of  the  Union  cause. 

So  we  arrived  in  New  York,  and  within  an  hour  or  two 
after  my  arrival  I  was  in  the  train  en  route  for  Philadelphia. 
On  the  way,  I  intrusted  a  newsboy  with  an  English  shilling 
to  go  and  get  me  change.  I  still  await  that  change.  And 
in  Philadelphia  the  hackman  who  drove  me  to  my  father's 
house,  as  soon  as  the  trunks  were  removed,  departed  sud 
denly,  carrying  away  with  him  a  small  hand-bag  containing 
several  valuable  objects,  which  I  never  recovered.  I  began 
to  think  that  if  the  object  of  travel  be  to  learn  to  keep  one's 


THE  RETURN  TO  AMERICA.  191 

eyes  open  and  avoid  being  swindled,  that  I  had  better  have 
remained  at  home. 

My  father  had  removed  to  another  house  in  Walnut 
Street,  below  Twelfth  Street.  After  this  he  only  changed 
dwellings  once  more  before  his  death.  This  constant  change 
from  one  rented  house  to  another,  like  the  changes  from 
school  to  school,  is  very  unfortunate,  as  I  have  before  said, 
for  any  family.  It  destroys  all  the  feeling  and  unity  of 
character  which  grow  up  in  a  settled  home. 

I  pass  over  the  joy  of  again  seeing  my  parents,  the  dear 
sisters,  and  brother  Henry.  I  was  soon  settled  down,  soon 
visiting  friends,  going  to  evening  parties,  making  morning 
or  afternoon  calls,  and  after  a  little  while  was  entered  as  a 
law-student  in  the  office  of  John  Cadwallader  in  Fourth 
Street. 

I  cannot  pass  over  the  fact,  for  it  greatly  influenced  my 
after  life,  that  though  everybody  was  very  kind  to  me,  and  I 
was  even  in  a  small  way  a  kind  of  lion,  the  change  from  my 
late  life  was  very  hard  to  bear.  I  have  read  a  wonderful 
story  of  a  boy  who  while  at  a  severe  school  had  a  marvellous 
dream.  It  seemed  to  last  for  years,  and  while  it  lasted  he 
went  to  the  University,  graduated,  passed  into  diplomatic 
life,  was  a  great  man  and  beloved  ;  when  all  at  once  he  awoke 
and  found  himself  at  school  again  and  birchable.  After  the 
freedom  of  student  life  in  Heidelberg  and  Munich  and  Paris, 
and  having  been  among  the  few  who  had  carried  out  a  great 
revolution,  and  much  familiarity  with  the  most  cosmopolite 
type  of  characters  in  Europe,  and  existing  in  literature  and 
art,  I  was  settled  down  to  live,  move,  and  have  all  being 
henceforth  and  perhaps  for  ever  in  Philadelphia  !  Of  which 
city,  at  that  time,  there  was  not  one  in  the  world  of  which  so 
little  evil  could  be  said,  or  so  much  good,  yet  of  which  so 
few  ever  spoke  with  enthusiasm.  Its  inhabitants  were  all 
well-bathed,  well-clad,  well-behaved;  all  with  exactly  the 
same  ideas  and  the  same  ideals.  A  decided  degree  of  refine 
ment  was  everywhere  perceptible,  and  they  were  so  fond  of 


192  MEMOIRS. 

flowers  that  I  once  ascertained  by  careful  inquiry  that  in 
most  respectable  families  there  was  annually  much  more 
money  expended  for  bouquets  than  for  books.  When  a 
Philadelphian  gave  a  dinner  or  supper,  his  great  care  was  to 
see  that  everything  on  the  table  was  as  good  or  perfect  as 
possible.  I  had  been  accustomed  to  first  considering  what 
should  be  placed  around  it  on  the  chairs  as  the  main  item. 
The  lines  of  demarcation  in  "  society "  were  as  strongly 
drawn  as  in  Europe,  or  more  so,  with  the  enormous  differ 
ence,  however,  that  there  was  not  the  slightest  perceptible 
shade  of  difference  in  the  intellects,  culture,  or  character  of 
the  people  on  either  side  of  the  line,  any  more  than  there  is 
among  the  school-boys  on  either  side  of  the  mark  drawn  for 
a  game.  Very  trifling  points  of  difference,  not  perceptible 
to  an  outsider,  made  the  whole  difference  between  the  ex- 
clusives  and  the  excluded ;  just  as  the  witch-mark  no  larger 
than  a  needle'-point  indicates  to  the  judge  the  difference 
between  the  saved  and  the  damned. 

I  had  not  been  long  engaged  in  studying  law  when  I 
made  the  acquaintance  of  Eichard  B.  Kimball,  a  lawyer  of 
New  York,  who  had  Avritten  a  few  novels  which  were  very 
popular,  and  are  still  reprinted  by  Tauchnitz.  He  knew 
everybody,  and  took  a  great  interest  in  me,  and  opened  the 
door  for  me  to  the  Knickerbocker  Magazine.  To  this  I  had 
contributed  articles  while  at  Princeton.  I  now  sent  it  my 
translation  of  Professor  Neumann's  "  Chinese  in  Mexico  in 
the  Fifth  Century."  I  forget  whether  this  was  in  1849  or 
1850.  In  after  years  I  expanded  it  to  a  book,  of  which  a  cer 
tain  Professor  said,  firstly  in  a  paper  read  before  the  Ameri 
can  Asiatic  Society,  and  secondly  in  a  pamphlet,  that  there 
was  nothing  of  any  importance  in  it  which  had  not  already 
appeared  in  Bancroft's  work  on  the  Pacific.  I  wrote  to  him, 
pointing  out  the  fact  that  Bancroft's  work  did  not  appear  till 
many  years  after  my  article  in  the  Knickerbocker.  To  which 
the  Sinologist  replied  very  suavely  and  apologetically  indeed 
that  he  was  "  very  sorry,"  but  had  never  seen  the  article  in 


THE  RETURN  TO  AMERICA.  193 

the  Knickerbocker,  &c.  But  he  did  not  publish  the  correction, 
as  he  should  have  done.  For  which  reason  I  now  vindicate 
myself  from  the  insinuated  accusation  that  I  borrowed  from 
Bancroft.  I  had,  indeed,  almost  forgotten  this  work,  "  Fu- 
sang,"  when,  in  1890,  Prince  Koland  Bonaparte,  at  a  dinner 
given  by  him  to  the  Congres  des  Traditions  Populaires, 
startled  me  by  recurring  to  it  and  speaking  of  it  with  great 
praise.  For  it  vindicates  the  claim  of  the  French  that  Des- 
guignes  first  discovered  the  fact  that  the  Chinese  were  the 
first  to  discover  America.  If  any  one  doubts  this,  let  him 
read  the  truly  great  work  of  Vinton  on  the  whole.  Prince 
Koland  had  been  in  China  and  earnestly  studied  the  subject. 
Von  Eichthal  had  endorsed  my  views,  and  wrote  to  me  on 
Fusang.  I  have  been  for  many  years  well  acquainted  with 
his  nephew,  Baron  von  Eichthal,  and  his  remarkably  accom 
plished  wife,  who  is  expert  in  all  the  minor  arts. 

My  father's  resources  became  about  this  time  limited,  and 
I,  in  fact,  realised  that  he  had  taxed  himself  more  than  I  had 
supposed  to  maintain  me  abroad.  His  Congress  Hall  prop 
erty  did  not  pay  much  rent.  For  my  position  in  the  world, 
friends,  studies,  and  society,  I  found  myself  very  much  and 
very  often  in  great  need  of  money.  As  at  that  time  we  were 
supposed  to  be  much  richer  than  we  really  were,  this  was  an 
additional  source  of  trial.  I  began  to  see  clearly  that  in  the 
law,  as  in  all  business  or  professions,  I  should  have  to  wait 
for  years  ere  I  could  make  a  living.  For  the  instances  are 
very  few  and  far  between  in  which  a  young  man,  who  has  not 
inherited  or  grown  up  to  a  practice,  can  make  one  himself  at 
once. 

More  than  this,  I  was  not  fitted  for  law  at  all.  From  my 
birth  I  had  absolutely  one  of  those  peculiar  temperaments 
which  really  disqualify  men  for  "business."  If  I  had  en 
tered  a  law-office  in  which  there  was  much  office-work  or 
practice,  I  might  have  acquired  a  practical  interest  in  the 
profession,  but  of  this  there  was  in  ours  literally  none  what 
ever.  I  had  a  great  fondness  for  copying  deeds,  &c.,  but  Mr. 


194  MEMOIRS. 

Cadwallader,  though  he  very  much  admired  my  quaint  round 
hand,  being  the  very  soul  of  honour,  observing  that  I  was 
eager  for  such  work,  would  not  give  me  much  of  it  though 
it  would  have  been  to  his  profit,  because,  as  he  said,  "  stu 
dents  who  paid  should  not  be  employed  as  clerks  only,  much 
less  as  copying  machines."  As  it  had  always  been  deeply  im 
pressed  on  my  mind  by  every  American  friend  that  I  had 
"  no  business  capacity,"  and,  moreover,  as  I  greatly  dreaded 
speaking  in  court,  I  had  from  the  beginning  a  great  fear  that 
I  could  never  live  by  the  law.  I  mention  this  because  there 
are  many  thousands  of  young  men  who  suffer  terribly  from 
such  apprehension,  and  often  ruin  life  by  it.  A  few  months' 
practice  in  a  mercantile  college  will  go  far  to  relieve  the  first 
apprehension,  while  as  regards  stage  fright,  it  can  be  easily 
educated  out  of  anybody,  as  I  have  since  those  days  educated 
it  out  of  myself,  so  that  rising  to  debate  or  speak  inspires  in 
me  a  gaudium  certaminis,  which  increases  with  the  certainty 
of  being  attacked.  Let  the  aspirant  begin  by  reading  papers 
before,  let  us  say,  a  family  or  school,  and  continue  to  do  so 
frequently  and  at  as  short  intervals  as  possible  before  such 
societies  or  lyceums  as  will  listen  to  him.  Then  let  him 
speak  from  memory  or  improvise  and  debate.  This  should 
form  a  part  of  all  education  whatever,  and  it  should  be  thor 
ough.  It  is  specially  needed  for  lawyers  and  divines,  yet  a 
great  proportion  of  both  are  most  insufficiently  trained  in  it ; 
and  while  I  was  studying  law  it  was  never  mentioned  to  me. 
I  was  never  so  much  as  once  taken  into  court  or  practically 
employed  in  any  manner  whatever. 

I  remember  an  amusing  incident  in  the  office.  Mr.  Cad 
wallader  asked  me  one  day  to  call,  returning  from  my  lunch, 
on  a  certain  Mr.  Dimpfel,  one  of  his  clients,  leave  a  certain 
message  and  his  request  as  follows : — "  I  want  you,  Mr.  Leland, 
to  be  very  careful.  I  have  observed  that  you  are  sometimes 
inaccurate  in  such  matters,  therefore  be  sure  that  you  give 
me  Mr.  Dimpfel's  very  words"  Mr.  Cadwallader  knew 
French  and  Spanish  perfectly,  but  not  German,  and  was 


THE   RETURN  TO  AMERICA.  195 

not  aware  that  I  always  conversed  with  Mr.  Dimpfel  in  the 
latter  language.  When  I  returned  my  teacher  said — 

"  Now,  Mr.  Leland,  can  you  repeat  accurately  word  for 
word  what  Mr.  Dimpfel  said  ?  "  I  replied  : 

"  Yes.  Der  Herr  Dimpfel  lasst  sicli  grilssen  und  meldet 
das  er  Montay  kommen  wird  um  lialb  drei.  Und  er  sagt 
lueiter  .  .  ." 

"  That  will  do,"  cried  Mr.  Cadwallader ;  "  you  must  give 
it  in  English." 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,"  was  my  grave  reply,  "  but  you 
asked  for  his  very  words." 

I  began  to  write  for  publication  in  1849.  Mr.  John  Sar- 
tain,  a  great  engraver,  established  a  magazine,  to  which  I 
contributed  several  articles  on  art  subjects,  subsequently 
many  more  on  all  subjects,  and  finally  every  month  a  certain 
number  of  pages  of  humorous  matter.  A  man  named  Manuel 
Cooke  established  in  Philadelphia  a  Drawing-Room  Journal. 
For  this  I  wrote  a  great  deal  for  a  year  or  two.  It  paid  me 
no  money,  but  gave  me  free  admission  to  theatres,  operas, 
etc.,  and  I  learned  a  great  deal  as  to  the  practical  manage 
ment  of  a  newspaper. 

The  first  summer  after  my  return  we  went  to  Stonington, 
and  thence  to  visit  our  friends  in  New  England,  as  of  yore. 
At  Dedham  I  had  an  attack  of  cholera ;  my  uncle,  Dr.  Stim- 
son,  gave  me  during  the  night  two  doses  of  laudanum  of  fifty 
drops  each,  which  cured  me.  Father  Matthew  came  to  Ded 
ham.  I  went  with  a  very  pretty  young  cousin  of  mine  named 
Marie  Lizzie  Fisher,  since  deceased,  to  hear  him  preach. 
After  the  address,  meeting  the  Father,  I  went  boldly  up  and 
introduced  myself  to  him,  and  then  Miss  Fisher.  I  think 
that  his  address  must  have  deeply  affected  me,  since  I  was 
obliged  to  stop  on  my  way  home  to  take  a  drink  to  steady 
my  nerves.  It  was  against  the  law  at  that  time  to  sell  such 
"  poison,"  so  the  hotel-keeper  took  me  and  my  paternal  uncle, 
George,  who  treated,  down  into  the  cellar,  where  he  had  con 
cealed  some  Hollands.  I  can  remember  that  that  pleasant 


196  MEMOIRS. 

summer  in  Dedham  I,  one  Sunday  morning  in  the  church  dur 
ing  service,  composed  a  poem,  which  in  after  years  even  found 
its  way  into  "  The  Poets  and  Poetry  of  America."  It  began 
with  the  words — 

"  O'er  an  old  ruined  doorway 

Philosophus  hung, 
And  madly  his  bell-cap 
And  bauble  he  swung." 

It  was  a  wild  mixture  of  cosmopolitanism  and  Hamletism, 
and  it  indicates  accurately  the  true  state  of  my  cor  cordium 
at  that  time.  Earnest  thought,  or  a  yearning  for  truth,  and 
worldly  folly,  were  playing  a  game  of  battledore  and  shuttle 
cock,  and  I  was  the  feathered  cork.  There  is  a  song  with 
out  words  by  Mendelssohn,  which  sets  forth  as  clearly  as 
Shakespeare  or  Heine  could  have  done  in  words,  deep  melan 
choly  or  unavoidable  suffering  expressing  itself  merrily  and 
gaily  in  a  manner  which  is  both  touching  and  beautiful,  or 
sweet  and  sad.  Without  any  self -consciousness  or  display  of 
sentimentalism,  I  find  deep  traces  of  this  in  many  little  poems 
or  sketches  which  I  wrote  at  that  time,  and  which  have  now 
been  forgotten.  I  had  been  in  Arcadia ;  I  was  now  in  a  very 
pleasant  sunny  Philistia ;  but  I  could  not  forget  the  past. 
And  I  never  forgot  it.  Once  in  Paris,  in  the  opera,  I  used  in 
jest  emphatically  the  Russian  word  harrascho,  "  good,"  when 
a  Russian  stranger  in  the  next  box  smiled  joyously,  and  rising, 
waved  his  glove  to  me.  Once  in  a  brilliant  soiree  in  Phila 
delphia  there  was  a  Hungarian  Count,  an  exile,  and  talking 
with  him  in  English,  I  let  fall  for  a  joke  "  Bassama  terem- 
tete!"  He  grasped  my  hand,  and,  forgetting  all  around, 
entered  into  a  long  conversation.  It  was  like  the  American 
who,  on  finding  an  American  cent  in  the  streets  in  Paris, 
burst  into  tears.  So  from  time  to  time  something  recalled 
Europe  to  me. 

I  went  now  and  then  to  New  York,  which  I  liked  better 
than  Philadelphia.  I  was  often  a  guest  of  Mr.  Kimball.  He 
introduced  me  to  Dr.  Rufus  Griswold,  a  strange  character 


THE  RETURN  TO  AMERICA.  197 

and  a  noted  man  of  letters.  He  was  to  his  death  so  uniformly 
a  friend  to  me,  and  so  untiring  in  his  efforts  to  aid  me,  that 
I  cannot  find  words  to  express  his  kindness  nor  the  gratitude 
which  I  feel.  He  became  the  editor  of  a  literary  magazine 
which  was  really  far  in  advance  of  the  time.  It  did  not  last 
long ;  while  it  endured  I  supplied  for  it  monthly  reviews  of 
foreign  literature. 

There  were  not  many  linguists  on  the  American  press  in 
those  days,  and  my  reviews  of  works  in  half-a-dozen  languages 
induced  some  one  to  pay  a  high  compliment  to  the  editor. 
It  was  Bayard  Taylor,  I  believe,  who,  hearing  this,  declared 
honestly,  and  as  a  friend,  that  I  alone  deserved  the  credit. 
This  was  repeated  by  some  one  to  Dr.  G-riswold  in  such  a 
form  that  he  thought  /  had  been  talking  against  him,  though 
I  had  never  spoken  to  a  soul  about  it.  The  result  was  that 
the  Doctor  promptly  dismissed  me,  and  I  felt  hurt.  Mr. 
Kimball  met  me  and  laughed,  saying,  "  The  next  time  you 
meet  the  Doctor  just  go  resolutely  at  him  and  replace  your 
self.  Don't  allow  him  a  word."  So,  meeting  Dr.  Griswold 
a  few  days  after  in  Philadelphia,  I  went  boldly  up  and  said, 
"  You  must  come  at  once  with  me  and  take  a  drink — imme 
diately  ! "  The  Doctor  went  like  a  lamb — not  to  the  slaughter, 
but  to  its  milk — and  when  he  had  drunk  a  comforting  grog, 
I  attacked  him  boldly,  and  declared  that  I  had  never  spoken 
a  word  to  a  living  soul  as  to  the  authorship  of  the  reviews 
— which  was  perfectly  true,  for  I  never  broke  the  golden 
rule  of  "  contributorial  anonymity."  So  the  Doctor  put 
me  on  the  staff,  again.  But  to  the  end  of  his.  life  I  was 
always  with  him  a  privileged  character,  and  could  take,  if 
I  chose,  the  most  extraordinary  liberties,  though  he  was 
one  of  the  most  irritable  and  vindictive  men  I  ever  met, 
if  he  fancied  that  he  was  in  any  way  too  familiarly 
treated. 

Kossuth  came  to  America,  and  I  was  almost  squeezed  to 
death — right  against  a  pretty  German  girl — in  the  crowd  at 
his  reception  in  Philadelphia.  At  the  dinner  in  New  York 


198  MEMOIRS. 

I  met  at  Kimball's  house  Franz  Pulszky,  and  sat  by  his  wife. 
I  have  since  seen  him  many  times  in  Buda-Pest. 

There  lived  in  Philadelphia  a  gentleman  named  Rodney 
Fisher.  lie  had  been  for  many  years  a  partner  in  an  Eng 
lish  house  in  Canton,  and  also  lived  in  England.  He  had 
long  been  an  intimate  friend  of  Russel  Sturgis,  subsequently 
of  "  Baring  Brothers."  He  was  a  grand-nephew  of  Caesar 
Rodney,  one  of  the  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independ 
ence,  and  a  son  of  Judge  Fisher,  of  Delaware.  He  was  a 
man  of  refined  and  agreeable  manners  and  an  admirable  re- 
later  of  his  innumerable  experiences  in  Europe  and  the  East. 
His  wife  had  been  celebrated  for  her  beauty.  When  I  first 
met  her  in  her  own  house  she  seemed  to  me  to  be  hardly 
thirty  years  of  age,  and  I  believed  at  first  she  was  one  of  her 
own  daughters.  She  was  without  exception  the  most  ami 
able,  I  may  say  lovable  person  whom  I  ever  met,  and  I  never 
had  a  nuance  or  shade  of  difference  of  opinion  with  her,  or 
know  an  instant  during  which  I  was  not  devoted  to  her.  I 
visited  his  house  and  fell  in  love  with  his  daughter  Belle,  to 
whom  I  became,  after  about  a  year,  engaged.  We  were  not, 
however,  married  till  five  years  after.  Thackeray,  whom  I 
knew  well,  said  to  a  Mr.  Curtis  Raymond,  of  Boston,  not 
long  before  leaving  for  England,  that  she  was  the  most  beau 
tiful  woman  whom  he  had  seen  in  America.  I  cannot  help 
recording  this. 

I  need  not  say  that,  notwithstanding  my  terrible  anxiety 
as  to  my  future,  from  this  time  I  led  a  very  happy  life. 
There  was  ^n  Philadelphia  a  very  wealthy  lady  called  its 
Queen.  This  was  Mrs.  James  Rush.  She  had  built  the 
finest  house  in  our  city,  and  placed  in  it  sixty  thousand 
dollars' worth  of  furniture.  "  E  un  bel  palazzo  !  "  said  an 
Italian  tenor  one  evening  to  me  at  a  reception  there.  This 
lady,  who  had  read  much,  had  lived  long  in  Europe  and 
"  knew  cities  and  men."  To  say  that  she  was  kind  to  me 
would  feebly  express  her  kindness.  It  is  true  that  we  were 
by  much  mutual  knowledge  rendered  congenial.  She  in- 


THE  RETURN  TO  AMERICA.  199 

vited  me  to  attend  her  weekly  receptions,  &c.,  with  Miss 
Fisher.  There  we  met  and  were  introduced  to  all  the  cele 
brated  people  who  passed  through  Philadelphia.  One  even 
ing  I  had  there,  for  instance,  a  conversation  in  German  with 
Mme.  Sontag,  the  great  singer,  as  with  Jerome  Bonaparte, 
the  nephew. 

When  the  summer  came  I  joined  Mr.  Fisher  and  his  two 
daughters — the  second  was  named  Mary — in  a  tour.  We 
went  to  New  York,  thence  up  the  Hudson,  and  eastward  to 
Boston.  After  a  day's  travel  we  came  to  a  town  on  the 
frontier  line,  where  we  had  to  stop  for  two  hours.  Mr. 
Fisher  and  I,  being  very  thirsty  and  fatigued,  went  into  a 
saloon  in  which  were  two  bars  or  counters.  Advancing  to 
the  second  of  these,  I  asked  for  brandy.  "  We  don't  sell  no 
brandy  here,"  replied  the  man.  "  This  is  in  Massachusetts : 
go  to  the  other  bar — that  is  in  New  York."  In  an  instant 
we  left  New  England  for  the  Middle  States,  and  refreshed 
ourselves.  Thence  we  went  to  Springfield  and  saw  the 
armoury,  where  guns  are  made.  Thence  to  Boston,  where 
we  stopped  at  a  hotel.  I  went  with  Miss  Belle  Fisher  for  a 
day's  excursion  to  Dedham,  where  my  mother  and  sisters 
were  on  a  visit.  It  was  very  pleasant. 

From  Boston  we  went  to  Newport,  and  stayed  at  the 
Ocean  House.  There  I  found  Milton  Sanford,  a  connection 
of  mine  and  a  noted  character.  He  had  lived  in  Florence 
and  known  Browning  and  his  wife.  He  was,  I  believe, 
uncle  of  Miss  Kate  Field.  He  introduced  me  to  Colonel 
Colt,  the  celebrated  inventor  or  re-discoverer  of  the  re 
volver  ;  to  Alf.  Jaell,  a  very  great  pianist ;  and  Edward 
Marshall,  a  brother  of  Humphrey  Marshall.  Sanford,  Colt, 
Marshall,  and  I  patronised  the  pistol  -  gallery  every  day, 
nor  did  we  abstain  from  mint  -  juleps.  I  found  that,  in 
shooting,  Colonel  Colt  could  beat  me  at  the  word,  but 
that  I  always  had  the  best  of  it  at  a  deliberate  "  take-your- 
time"  shot.  There,  too,  were  the  two  brothers  Burnett, 
whom  I  had  met  long  before  in  Heidelberg.  What  with 


200  MEMOIRS. 

drives  and  balls  and  other  gaiety,  the  time  passed  pleas 
antly  enough. 

As  I  spoke  German,  I  became  intimate  with  Jaell.  He 
could  not  sing  at  all.  Once  I  suggested  to  him  that  he 
should  compose  variations  on  an  air,  a  German  popular  song. 
For  a  day  or  two  he  hummed  it  as  well  as  he  could.  On  the 
third  morning  he  took  me  into  a  room  where  there  was  a  piano, 
and  asked  me  to  sing  while  he  played  accompaniments.  All 
at  once  he  said,  "  Stop !  I  have  got  it !  "  and  then  he  played 
the  air  with  marvellously  beautiful  variations.  lie  was  a 
great  genius,  but  I  never  heard  him  play  in  public  as  he 
played  then.  He  was  in  a  "  high  hour."  It  was  wonderful. 
I  may  here  say  that  in  after  years,  while  living  at  a  hotel,  I 
became  well  acquainted  with  Thalberg,  and  especially  with 
Ole  Bull,  the  violinist,  who  told  me  much  about  Heine. 

So  time  rolled  on  for  three  years.  I  passed  my  examina 
tion  and  took  an  office  in  Third  Street,  with  a  sign  proclaim 
ing  that  I  was  attorney-at-law  and  Avokat.  During  six 
months  I  had  two  clients  and  made  exactly  three  pounds. 
Then,  the  house  being  wanted,  I  left  and  gave  up  law.  This 
was  a  very  disheartening  time  for  me.  I  had  a  great  many 
friends  who  could  easily  have  put  collecting  and  other  busi 
ness  in  my  hands,  but  none  of  them  did  it.  I  felt  this  very 
keenly.  Quite  apart  from  a  young  man's  pushing  himself, 
despite  every  obstacle,  there  is  the  great  truth  that  some 
times  the  obstacles  or  bad  luck  become  insuperable.  Mine 
did  at  this  time. 

The  author  of  "  Gossip  of  the  Century "  has  well  re 
marked  that  "  it  has  been  said  that  however  quickly  a  clever 
lad  may  have  run  up  the  ladder,  whether  of  fame  or  fortune, 
it  will  always  be  found  that  he  was  lucky  enough  to  find 
some  one  who  put  his  foot  on  the  first  rung."  Which  is 
perfectly  true,  as  I  soon  found,  if  not  in  law,  at  least  in 
literature. 

I  went  more  than  once  to  New  York,  hoping  to  obtain 
literary  employment.  One  day  Dr.  Rufus  Griswold  came  to 


THE  RETURN  TO  AMERICA.  201 

me  in  great  excitement.  Mr.  Barnum — the  great  showman 
— and  the  Brothers  Beech  were  about  to  establish  a  great 
illustrated  weekly  newspaper,  and  he  was  to  be  the  editor  and 
I  the  assistant.  It  is  quite  true  that  he  had  actually  taken 
the  post,  for  which  he  did  not  care  twopence,  only  to  provide 
a  place  for  me,  and  he  had  tramped  all  over  New  York  for 
hours  in  a  fearful  storm  to  find  me  and  to  announce  the  good 
news. 

Then  work  began  for  me  in  tremendous  earnest.  Let  the 
reader  imagine  such  a  paper  as  the  London  Illustrated  News 
with  one  editor  and  one  assistant!  Three  men  could  not 
have  read  our  exchanges,  and  I  was  expected  to  do  that 
and  all  the  minor  casual  writing  for  cuts,  or  cutting  down 
and  occasional  outside  work.  And  yet  even  Mr.  Barnum, 
who  should  have  had  more  sense,  one  day,  on  coming  in,  ex 
pressed  his  amazement  on  seeing  about  a  cartload  of  country 
exchanges  which  I  had  not  opened.  But  there  was  some 
thing  in  Philadelphia  which  made  all  work  seem  play  to  me, 
and  I  long  laboured  from  ten  in  the  morning  till  midnight. 
My  assiduity  attracted  attention. 

Dr.  Griswold  was  always  a  little  "  queer,"  and  I  used  to 
scold  and  reprove  him  for  it.  He  had  got  himself  into  great 
trouble  by  his  remarks  on  Edgar  A.  Poe.  Mr.  Kimball  and 
others,  who  knew  the  Doctor,  believed,  as  I  do,  that  there  was 
no  deliberate  evil  or  envy  in  those  remarks.  Poe's  best 
friends  told  severe  stories  of  him  in  those  days — me  ipso  teste 
— and  Griswold,  naught  extenuating  and  setting  down 
naught  in  malice,  Avrote  incautiously  more  than  he  should. 
These  are  the  words  of  another  than  I.  But  when  Griswold 
was  attacked,  then  he  became  savage.  One  day  I  found  in 
his  desk,  which  he  had  committed  to  me,  a  great  number  of 
further  material  collected  to  Poe's  discredit.  I  burnt  it  all 
up  at  once,  and  told  the  Doctor  what  I  had  done,  and  scolded 
him  well  into  the  bargain.  He  took  it  all  very  amiably. 
There  was  also  much  more  matter  to  other  men's  discredit — 
ascensionem  expectans — awaiting  publication,  all  of  which  I 


202  MEMOIRS. 

burned.  It  was  the  result  of  long  research,  and  evidently 
formed  the  material  for  a  book.  Had  it  ever  been  published, 
it  would  have  made  Home  howl !  But,  as  I  said,  I  was  angry, 
and  I  knew  it  would  injure  Dr.  Griswold  more  than  anybody. 
It  is  a  pity  that  I  had  not  always  had  the  Doctor  in  hand — 
though  I  must  here  again  repeat  that,  as  regards  Poe,  he  is, 
in  my  opinion,  not  so  much  to  blame  as  a  score  of  writers 
have  made  out.  The  tales,  which  were  certainly  most  authen 
tic,  or  at  least  apparently  so,  during  the  life  of  the  latter, 
among  his  best  friends  regarding  him,  were,  to  say  the  least, 
discreditable,  albeit  that  is  no  excuse  whatever  for  publish 
ing  them.  I  have  always  much  disliked  the  popular  princi 
ple  of  judging  men's  works  entirely  by  their  lives,  and  decid 
ing  against  the  literary  merit  of  Sartor  Resartus  because 
Carlyle  put  his  wife's  money  to  his  own  account  in  banco. 

And  it  is,  moreover,  cruel  that  a  man,  because  he  has 
been  a  poet  or  genius  or  artist,  must  needs  have  every  weak 
ness  (real  or  conjectured)  in  his  life  served  up  and  grinned  at 
and  chatted  over,  as  if  he  forsooth  were  a  clergyman  or  some 
kind  of  make-believe  saint.  However,  the  more  vulgar  a 
nature  is  the  more  it  will  gloat  on  gossip ;  and  herein  the 
most  pretentious  of  the  higher  classes  show  themselves  no 
better  than  the  basest. 

I  lived  at  Dan  Bixby's,  at  the  corner  of  Park  Place  and 
Broadway,  where  I  came  very  near  being  shot  one  night  by  a 
man  who  mistook  me,  or  rather  my  room,  for  that  of  the  one 
below,  in  which  his  wife  was,  or  had  been,  with  another  per 
son.  Being  very  tipsy,  the  injured  individual  went  one 
storey  too  high,  and  tried  to  burst  in  to  shoot  me  with  a  re 
volver,  but  I  repelled  him  after  a  severe  struggle,  in  which 
I  had  sharp  work  to  avoid  being  shot.  I  would  much  rather 
fight  a  decent  duel  any  time  than  have  such  a  "  hog-fight." 
I  only  had  a  loaded  cane.  The  worst  of  it  was  that  the  in 
jured  husband,  having  traced  his  wife,  as  he  erroneously 
thought,  to  my  room,  went  to  Bixby  and  the  clerk,  and  asked 
who  lived  in  it.  But  as  they  were  my  friends,  they  dismissed 


THE  KETURN  TO  AMERICA.  203 

him  gruffly,  yet  believed  all  the  same  that  /  had  "  a  petticoat 
in  my  wardrobe."  Hence  for  a  week  all  my  friends  kept 
making  cruel  allusions  in  my  presence  to  gay  deceivers  and 
Don  Juan  et  cetera^  until  in  a  rage  I  asked  what  the  devil  it 
all  meant,  when  there  was  an  explanation  by  a  clergyman, 
and  I  swore  myself  clear.  But  I  thought  it  was  hard  lines 
tO'have  to  stand  the  revolver,  endure  all  the  scandal  for  a  week, 
and  be  innocent  all  the  time  withal !  That  was  indeed  bitter 
in  the  cup  ! 

Apropos  of  this  small  affair,  I  can  recall  a  droll  scene,  de 
eodem  genere,  which  I  witnessed  within  a  week  of  the  other. 
There  was  a  rather  first-class  saloon,  bar,  and  restaurant  on 
Broadway,  kept  by  a  good-looking  pugilistic-associated  in 
dividual  named  George  Shurragar.  As  he  had  black  eyes, 
and  was  a  shoulder-hitter,  and  as  the  name  in  Romany  means 
"  a  captain,"  I  daresay  he  was  partly  gypsy.  And,  when 
weary  with  editorial  work,  I  sometimes  dropped  in  there  for 
refreshment.  One  night  an  elderly,  vulgar  individual, 
greatly  exalted  by  many  brandies,  became  disorderly,  and 
drawing  a  knife,  made  a  grand  Malay  charge  on  all  present, 
a  la  mok.  George  Shurragar  promptly  settled  him  with  a 
blow,  disarmed  him,  and  "  fired  him  out"  into  outer  dark 
ness.  Then  George  exhibited  the  knife.  It  was  such  a  dirty, 
disreputable-looking  "pig-sticker,"  that  we  were  all  dis 
gusted,  and  George  cast  it  with  contempt  into  the  street. 
Does  the  reader  remember  the  scene  in  "  The  Bohemian 
Girl "  in  which  the  dandy  Count  examines  the  nasty  knife 
left  behind  by  the  gypsy  Devilshoof?  It  was  the  very 
counterpart  of  this,  the  difference  being  that  in  this  case  it 
was  the  gypsy  who  despised  the  instrument. 

Such  trivial  amusing  incidents  and  rencontres  as  these 
were  matters  of  almost  daily  occurrence  to  me  in  those  days, 
and  I  fear  that  I  incur  the  reproach  of  padding  by  narrating 
these.  Yet,  as  I  write  this,  I  have  just  read  in  the  "  Life  of 
Benvenuto  Cellini "  that  he  too  omits  the  description  of  a  lot 
of  exactly  such  adventures,  as  being,  like  the  darkey's  im- 


204  MEMOIRS. 

prisonments  for  stealing,  "  not  worf  mcntionin' " — and  con 
fess  I  felt  great  regret  that  he  did  so  ;  for  there  is  always  a 
great  deal  of  local  and  temporal  colour  in  anything  whose 
proper  finale  should  be  in  a  police-court. 

Hawthorne  used  to  stay  at  Bixby's.  He  was  a  moody 
man,  who  sat  by  the  stove  and  spoke  to  no  one.  Bixby  had 
been  a  publisher,  and  was  proud  that  he  had  first  issued 
Hayward's  "  Faust "  in  America.  He  was  also  proud  that 
his  hotel  was  much  frequented  by  literary  men  and  naval 
officers.  He  was  very  kind  to  me.  Once  when  I  complained 
to  the  clerk  that  the  price  of  my  rooms  was  too  high,  he  re 
plied,  "  Mr.  Leland,  the  prices  of  all  the  rooms  in  the  house, 
excepting  yours,  were  raised  long  ago,  and  Mr.  Bixby  charged 
me  strictly  not  to  let  you  know  it"  Uncle  Daniel  was  a 
gentleman,  and  belonged  to  my  club — the  Century.  When 
he  grew  older  he  lived  on  an  annuity,  and  was  a  great  and 
privileged  favourite  among  actresses  and  singers.  Thirty 
years  later  I  called  with  him  in  New  York  on  Ada  Caven 
dish. 

After  a  fortnight  or  so,  Dr.  Griswold  began  to  be  very 
erratic.  He  had  a  divorce  case  going  on  in  Philadelphia. 
He  went  off,  assuring  me  that  everything  was  in  order,  and 
never  returned.  The  foreman  came  to  me  saying  that  there 
was  no  copy,  and  nothing  ready,  and  everything  needed. 
Here  was  indeed  a  pretty  kettle  of  fish !  For  I  at  that  time 
absolutely  distrusted  my  own  ability  to  do  all  the  work.  I 
flew  to  Kimball,  who  said,  "  Just  put  it  through  by  strong 
will,  and  you'll  succeed." 

Then  I  went  to  Mr.  Barnum — Uncle  Barnum — who  was 
always  "  as  good  as  gold  "  to  me.  I  burst  out  into  a  state 
ment  of  my  griefs,  mentioning  incidentally  that  I  really 
could  not  go  on  as  full  editor,  and  do  such  fearful  work  on 
the  salary  of  an  office-boy.  He  listened  to  it  all,  I  am  sure 
with  amusement,  and  placing  his  hand  kindly  on  my  shoulder 
as  we  walked  up  and  down  the  hall  of  the  Museum,  said, 
"  You  shcCrft  go.  Don't  get  into  a  funk.  I  know  that  you 


THE  RETURN  TO  AMERICA.  205 

can  do  the  work,  and  do  it  well.  And  the  salary  shall  be 
doubled — certainly !  " 

So  the  paper  was  brought  out  after  all.  I  had  great  trouble 
for  some  time  to  learn  to  write  editorials.  I  used  to  go  to  the 
office  of  a  Sunday  morn,  and  sit  sometimes  from  ten  till  two 
turning  over  the  exchanges,  and  seeking  for  ideas.  It  was  a 
dreadful  ordeal.  In  fact,  in  after  times  it  was  several  years 
before  I  could  seize  a  pen,  rattle  up  a  subject  and  dash  off  a 
leader.  Now  I  can  write  far  more  easily  than  I  can  talk. 
And  it  is  a  curious  fact  that  soon  after  I  became  really  skilled 
at  such  extempore  work  in  the  opinion  of  the  best  judges, 
such  as  Raymond,  I  no  longer  had  any  opportunity  to  prac 
tice  it. 

I  had  worked  only  a  week  or  two  when  a  rather  queer, 
tall,  roughish  Yankee  was  brought  into  the  office.  He 
worked  for  a  while,  and  in  a  day  or  two  took  possession  of 
my  desk  and  rudely  informed  me  that  he  was  my  superior 
editor  and  master  there.  He  had,  as  many  men  do,  mistaken 
amiable  politeness  for  humility.  I  replied,  knowing  that 
Mr.  Beech,  out  of  sight,  was  listening  to  every  word,  that 
there  was  no  master  there  but  Mr.  Beech,  and  that  I  should 
keep  my  desk.  AVe  became  affable ;  but  I  abode  my  time, 
for  I  found  that  he  was  utterly  incompetent  to  do  the  work. 
Very  soon  he  told  me  that  he  had  an  invitation  to  lecture  in 
Philadelphia,  I  told  him  that  if  he  wished  to  go  I  would 
do  all  his  work  for  him.  So  he  went,  and  Mr.  Beech  com 
ing  in,  asked  where  Mr.  -  -  was.  I  replied  that  he  had 
gone  away  to  lecture,  and  that  I  was  to  do  his  work  during 
his  absence.  This  was  really  too  much,  and  the  Yankee  was 
dismissed  "  in  short  order,"  the  Beeches  being  men  who 
made  up  their  minds  promptly  and  acted  vigorously.  As 
for  me,  I  never,  shirked  work  of  any  kind.  A  gentleman  on 
a  newspaper  never  does.  The  more  of  a  snob  a  man  is,  the 
more  afraid  he  is  of  damaging  his  dignity,  and  the  more  de 
sirous  of  being  "boss"  and  captain.  But  though  I  have 
terribly  scandalised  my  chief  or  proprietor  by  reporting  a  fire, 
10 


206  MEMOIRS. 

I  never  found  that  I  was  less  respected  by  the  typos,  reporters, 
and  subs. 

I  had  before  leaving  Philadelphia  published  two  books. 
One  was  "  The  Poetry  and  Mystery  of  Dreams,"  which  I 
dedicated  to  my  fiancee,  Miss  Belle  Fisher.  The  other  was 
an  odd  melange,  which  had  appeared  in  chapters  in  the 
Knickerbocker  Magazine.  It  was  titled  Meister  Karl's 
Sketch-Book.  It  had  no  great  success  beyond  attaining  to  a 
second  edition  long  after  ;  yet  Washington  Irving  praised  it 
to  everybody,  and  wrote  to  me  that  he  liked  it  so  much  that 
he  kept  it  by  him  to  nibble  ever  and  anon,  like  a  Stilton 
cheese  or  a  pate  de  foie  gras ;  and  here  and  there  I  have 
known  men,  like  the  late  Nicolas  Triibner  or  E.  L.  Bulwer, 
who  found  a  strange  attraction  in  it,  but  it  was  emphatically 
caviare  to  the  general  reader.  It  had  at  least  a  style  of  its 
own,  which  found  a  few  imitators.  It  ranks,  I  think,  about 
pari  passu  with  Coryatt's  "  Crudities,"  or  lower. 

There  were  two  or  three  salons  in  New  York  where  there 
were  weekly  literary  receptions,  and  where  one  could  meet 
the  principal  writers  of  the  time.  I  often  saw  at  Kimball's 
and  other  places  the  Misses  Wetherell,  who  wrote  the  "  Wide, 
Wide  World  "  and  "  Queechy."  They  were  elderly,  and  had 
so  very  little  of  the  "  world  "  in  their  ways,  that  they  occurred 
to  me  as  an  example  of  the  fact  that  people  generally  write 
most  on  what  they  know  least  about.  Thus  a  Lowell  factory- 
girl  likes  to  write  a  tale  of  ducal  society  in  England  ;  and 
when  a  Scotchman  has  less  intelligence  of  "  jocks "  and 
"  wut "  than  any  of  his  countrymen,  he  compiles,  and  com 
ments  on,  American  humorists. 

Once  there  was  a  grand  publishers'  dinner  to  authors 
where  I  went  with  Alice  and  Phoebe  Carey,  who  were  great 
friends  of  mine.  There  I  met  and  talked  with  Washington 
Irving ;  I  remember  Bryant  and  N.  P.  Willis,  ft  tons  les 
autres.  Just  at  that  time  wine,  &c.,  could  only  be  sold  in 
New  York  "in  the  original  packages  as  imported."  Alice 
or  Phoebe  Carey  lamented  that  we  were  to  have  none  at  the 


THE   RETURN  TO  AMERICA.  207 

banquet.  There  was  a  large  dish  of  grapes  before  her,  and  I 
said,  "  Why,  there  you  have  plenty  of  it  in  the  original  pack 
ages  ! " 

At  that  time  very  hospitable  or  genial  hosts  used  to  place 
a  bottle  of  brandy  and  glass  in  the  gentlemen's  dressing-room 
at  an  evening's  reception,  and  I  remember  it  was  considered 
a  scandalous  thing  when  a  certain  old  retired  naval  officer 
once  emptied  the  whole  bottle  single-handed. 

Of  course  I  was  very  intimate  with  Clark  of  the  KnicJc- 
erbocker,  Fred  Cozzens,  John  Godfrey  Saxe,  and  all  the  com 
pany  of  gay  and  festive  humorists  who  circled  about  that 
merry  magazine.  There  was  never  anything  quite  like  the 
Knickerbocker,  and  there  never  will  be  again.  It  required  a 
sunny,  genial  social  atmosphere,  such  as  we  had  before  the 
war,  and  never  after  ;  an  easy  writing  of  gay  and  cultivated 
men  for  one  another,  and  not  painfully  elaborating  jocosities 

or  seriosities  for  the  million  as  in But  never  mind.  It 

sparkled  through  its  summer-time,  and  oh  !  how  its  readers 
loved  it !  I  sometimes  think  that  I  would  like  to  hunt  up 
the  old  title-plate  with  Diedrich  Knickerbocker  and  his  pipe, 
and  issue  it  again  every  month  to  a  few  dozen  subscribers 
who  loved  quaint  odds  and  ends,  till  I  too  should  pass  away  ! 

It  was  easy  enough  to  foresee  that  a  great  illustrated 
weekly,  with  actually  one  young  man,  and  generally  no 
more,  to  do  all  the  literary  work  could  not  last  long.  And 
yet  the  New  York  Times,  or  some  such  journal,  said  that 
the  work  was  very  well  done,  and  that  the  paper  did  well 
until  I  left.  Heaven  knows  that  I  worked  hard  enough  on 
it,  and,  what  was  a  great  deal  to  boast  of  in  those  days,  never 
profited  one  farthing  beyond  free  tickets  to  plays,  which  I 
had  little  time  to  use.  And  yet  my  pay  was  simply  despicably 
small.  I  had  great  temptations  to  write  up  certain  specu 
lative  enterprises,  and  never  accepted  one.  Our  circulation 
sometimes  reached  150,000.  And  if  the  publishers  (excepting 
Barnum)  had  ever  shown  me  anything  like  thanks  or  kind 
ness  for  gratuitous  zeal  and  interest  which  I  took,  I  could 


208  MEMOIRS. 

have  greatly  aided  them.  One  day,  for  instance,  I  was  asked 
to  write  a  description  of  a  new  ferry.  I  went  there,  and  the 
proprietor  intimated  that  he  would  pay  a  large  sum  for  an 
article  which  would  point  out  the  advantage  or  profit  which 
would  accrue  from  .investing  in  his  lots.  I  told  him  that  if 
it  were  really  true  that  such  was  the  case,  I  would  do  it  for 
nothing,  but  that  I  never  made  money  behind  my  salary.  I 
began  to  weary  of  the  small  Yankee  greed  and  griping  and 
"  thanklessness  "  which  I  experienced.  There  were  editors 
in  New  York  who,  for  less  work,  earned  ten  times  the  salary 
which  I  received.  I  was  not  sorry  when  I  heard  that  some 
utterly  inexperienced  Xew  England  clergyman  had  been  en 
gaged  to  take  my  place.  So  I  returned  to  Philadelphia.  The 
paper  very  soon  came  to  grief.  I  believe  that  with  Barnum 
alone  I  could  have  made  it  a  great  success.  AVe  had  Frank 
Leslie  for  chief  engraver,  and  he  was  very  clever  and  am 
bitious.  I  had  a  knowledge  of  art,  literature,  and  foreign 
life  and  affairs,  which  could  have  been  turned,  with  Leslie's 
co-operation,  to  great  advantage.  I  needed  an  office  with  a 
few  books  for  reference,  at  least  three  or  four  literary  aids, 
and  other  ordinary  absolutely  necessary  facilities  for  work. 
All  that  I  literally  had  was  a  space  half-portioned  off  from 
the  engine-room,  where  a  dozen  blackguard  boys  swore  and 
yelled  as  it  were  at  my  elbow,  a  desk,  a  chair,  and  a  pair  of 
scissors,  ink,  and  paste.  This  wretched  scrimping  prevailed 
through  the  whole  business,  and  thus  it  was  expected  to  es 
tablish  a  great  first-class  American  illustrated  newspaper.  It 
is  sometimes  forgotten  in  the  United  States  that  to  make  a 
vast  success,  something  is  requisite  beyond  enterprise  and 
economy,  and  that  it  is  a  very  poor  policy  to  screw  your 
employes  down  to  the  last  cent,  and  overwork  them,  and 
make  business  needlessly  irksome,  when  they  have  it  in  their 
power  to  very  greatly  advance  your  interests.  I  dwell  on  this 
because  it  is  a  common  error  everywhere.  I  have  in  my 
mind  a  case  in  which  an  employer,  who  lived  "like  a  prince," 
boasted  to  me  how  little  he  paid  his  men,  and  how  in  the 


THE   RETURN  TO  AMERICA.  209 

long-run  it  turned  out  bitterly  to  his  loss  in  many  ways. 
Those  who  had  no  principle  robbed  him,  while  the  honest, 
who  would  have  made  his  interests  their  own,  left  him.  I 
have  seen  business  after  business  broken  up  in  this  way. 
While  the  principal  is  in  vigour  and  life,  he  may  succeed 
with  mere  servants  who  are  poorly  paid  ;  then,  after  a  time, 
some  younger  partner,  who  has  learned  his  morals  from  the 
master,  pushes  him  out,  or  he  dies,  and  the  business  is  worth 
less,  because  there  is  not  a  soul  in  it  who  cares  for  it,  or  who 
has  grown  up  with  any  common  sense  of  interest  with  the 
heirs. 

I  remember  one  day  being  obliged  in  New  York  to  listen 
to  a  conversation  between  two  men  of  business.  One  owed 
the  other  a  large  sum,  honestly  enough — of  that  there  was 
no  question  between  them  ;  but  he  thought  that  there  was  a 
legal  way  to  escape  payment,  while  the  other  differed  from 
him.  So  they  argued  away  for  a  long  time.  There  was  not 
a  word  of  reproach ;  the  creditor  would  have  cheated  the 
debtor  in  the  same  way  if  he  could ;  the  only  point  of  differ 
ence  was  whether  it  could  be  done.  An  employe  who  can 
remain  in  such  surroundings  and  be  honest  must  be  indeed  a 
miracle  of  integrity,  and,  if  he  do  not  over-reach  them  in  the 
long-run,  one  of  stupidity.  I  might  have  made  "  house  and 
land  "  out  of  the  newspaper  had  I  been  so  disposed. 

Of  all  the  men  whom  I  met  in  those  days  in  the  way  of 
business,  Mr.  Barnum,  the  great  American  humbug,  was  by 
far  the  honestest  and  freest  from  guile  or  deceit,  or  "  ways 
that  were  dark,  or  tricks  that  were  vain."  He  was  very 
kind-hearted  and  benevolent,  and  gifted  with  a  sense  of  fun 
which  was  even  stronger  than  his  desire  for  dollars.  I  have 
talked  very  confidentially  with  him  many  times,  for  he  was 
very  fond  of  me,  and  always  observed  that  to  engineer  some 
grotesque  and  startling  paradox  into  tremendous  notoriety, 
to  make  something  immensely  puzzling  with  a  stupendous 
sell  as  postscript,  was  more  of  a  motive  with  him  than  even 
the  main  chance.  He  was  a  genius  like  Eabelais,  but  one 


210  MEMOIRS. 

who  employed  business  and  humanity  for  material  instead 
of  literature,  just  as  Abraham  Lincoln,  who  was  a  brother 
of  the  same  band,  employed  patriotism  and  politics.  All 
three  of  them  expressed  vast  problems,  financial,  intellectual, 
or  natural,  by  the  brief  arithmetic  of  a  joke.  Mr.  Barnum 
was  fearfully  busy  in  those  days ;  what  with  buying  ele 
phants,  wooing  two-headed  girls  for  his  Grand  Combination, 
laying  out  towns,  chartering  banks,  and  inventing  unheard- 
of  wonders  for  the  unrivalled  collection  of  one  hundred  and 
fifty  million  unparalleled  moral  marvels ;  but  he  always  found 
time  to  act  as  unpaid  contributor  to  a  column  of  humorous 
items  which  I  always  published.  I  have  said  that  I  had  no 
assistant ;  I  forgot  that  I  always  had  Mr.  Barnum  as  assistant 
humorous  editor  for  that  department.  All  at  once,  when 
least  expected,  he  would  come  smiling  in  with  some  curiosity 
of  literature  such  as  the  "  reverse  " — 

"  Lewd  did  1  live  &  evil  I  did  dwel," 

or  a  fresh  conundrum  or  joke,  with  all  his  heart  and  soul  full 
of  it,  and  he  would  be  as  delighted  over  the  proof  as  if  to  see 
himself  in  print  was  a  startling  novelty.  We  two  had  "  beau 
tiful  times  "  over  that  column,  for  there  was  a  great  deal  of 
"  boy "  still  left  in  Barnum ;  nor  was  I  by  any  means  de 
ficient  in  it.  One  thing  I  set  my  face  against  firmly  :  I 
never  would  in  any  way  whatever  write  up,  aid,  or  advertise 
the  great  show  or  museum,  or  cry  up  the  elephant.  I  was 
resolved  to  leave  the  paper  first. 

On  that  humorous  column  Barnum  always  deferred  to 
me,  even  as  a  small  school-boy  defers  to  an  elder  on  the  ques 
tion  of  a  game  of  marbles  or  hop-scotch.  There  was  no 
affectation  or  play  in  it ;  we  were  both  quite  in  earnest.  I 
think  I  see  him  now,  coming  smiling  in  like  a  harvest-moon, 
big  with  some  new  joke,  and  then  we  sat  down  at  the  desk 
and  "  edited."  How  we  would  sit  and  mutually  and  ad 
miringly  read  to  one  another  our  beautiful  "  good  things," 
the  world  forgetting,  by  the  world  forgot !  And  yet  I  declare 


THE  RETURN  TO  AMERICA.  211 

that  never  till  this  instant  did  the  great  joke  of  it  all  ever 
occur  to  me — that  two  men  of  our  experiences  could  be  so 
simply  pleased  !  Those  humorous  columns,  collected  and 
republished  in  a  book,  might  truly  bear  on  the  title-page, 
"  By  Barnum  and  Hans  Breitmann."  And  we  were  both  of 
the  opinion  that  it  really  would  make  a  very  nice  book  in 
deed.  AVe  were  indeed  both  "  boys  "  over  it  at  play. 

The  entire  American  press  expected,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
that  the  Illustrated  Neius  would  be  simply  an  advertisement 
for  the  great  showman,  and,  as  I  represented  to  Mr.  Barnum, 
this  would  ere  long  utterly  ruin  the  publication.  I  do  not 
now  really  know  Avhether  I  was  quite  right  in  this,  but  it  is 
very  much  to  Mr.  Barnum's  credit  that  he  never  insisted  on 
it,  and  that  in  his  OAvn  paper  he  was  conspicuous  by  his  ab 
sence.  And  here  I  will  say  that,  measured  by  the  highest  and 
most  refined  standard,  there  was  more  of  the  gentleman  in 
Phiueas  T.  Barnum  than  the  world  imagined,  and  very  much 
more  than  there  was  in  a  certain  young  man  in  good  society 
who  once  expressed  in  my  hearing  disgust  at  the  idea  of  even 
speaking  to  "  the  showman." 

Henry  "Ward  Beecher  was  a  great  friend  of  Barnum  and 
the  Beaches,  of  which  some  one  wrote — 

"  No  wonder  Mr.  Alfred  Beach 
Prefers,  as  noblest  preacher, 
A  man  who  is  not  only  Beach, 
But  even  more  so — Beecher." 

He  came  very  frequently  into  our  office  ;  but  I  cannot  re 
call  any  saying  of  his  worth  recording. 

There  was  also  a  brother  of  H.  "W.  Longfellow,  a  clergy 
man,  who  often  visited  me,  of  whom  I  retain  a  most  agree 
able  recollection. 

The  newsboys  who  clustered  round  the  outer  door  were 
divided  in  opinion  as  to  me.  One  party  thought  I  was  Mr. 
Barnum,  and  treated  me  with  profound  respect.  The  other 
faction  cried  aloud  after  me,  "  Hy  !  you !  " 

Mr.  Barnum  wanted  me  to  write  his  Life.     This  would 


212  MEMOIRS. 

have  been  amusing  work  and  profitable,  but  I  shrunk  from 
the  idea  of  being  identified  with  it.  I  might  as  well  have 
done  it,  for  I  believe  that  Dr.  Griswold  performed  the  task, 
and  the  public  never  knew  or  cared  anything  about  it.  But 
my  jolly  companions  at  Dan  Bixby's  used  to  inquire  of  me  at 
what  hour  we  fed  the  monkeys,  and  whether  the  Great  Gyas- 
cutus  ever  gave  me  any  trouble  ;  and  I  was  sensitive  to  such 
insinuations. 

At  this  time  Mr.  Barnum's  great  moral  curiosity  was  a 
bearded  lady,  a  jolly  and  not  bad-looking  Frenchwoman, 
whose  beard  was  genuine  enough,  as  I  know,  having  pulled 
it.  My  own  beard  has  been  described  by  a  French  newspaper 
as  line  barbe  do  Charlemagne,  a  very  polite  pun,  but  hers  was 
much  fuller.  It  was  soft  as  floss  silk.  After  a  while  the  cap 
illary  attraction  ceased  to  draw,  and  Mr.  Barnum  thought  of 
an  admirable  plan  to  revive  it.  He  got  somebody  to  prose 
cute  him  for  false  pretences  and  imposture,  on  the  ground 
that  Madame  was  a  man.  Then  Mr.  Barnum  had,  with  the 
greatest  unwillingness  and  many  moral  apologies,  a  medical 
examination ;  they  might  as  sensibly  have  examined  Vashish- 
ta's  cow  to  find  out  if  it  was  an  Irish  bull.  Then  came  the 
attack  on  the  impropriety  of  the  whole  thing,  and  finally  Mr. 
Barnum's  triumphant  surrebutter,  showing  he  had  most  un 
willingly  been  goaded  by  the  attacks  of  malevolent  wretches 
into  an  unavoidable  course  of  defence.  Of  course,  spotless 
innocence  came  out  triumphant.  Mr.  Barnum's  system  of 
innocence  was  truly  admirable.  When  he  had  concocted  some 
monstrous  cock-and-bull  curiosity,  he  was  wont  to  advertise 
that  "  it  was  with  very  great  reluctance  that  he  presented  this 
unprecedented  marvel  to  the  world,  as  doubts  had  been  ex 
pressed  as  to  its  genuineness — doubts  inspired  by  the  actually 
apparently  incredible  amount  of  attraction  in  it.  All  that  we 
ask  of  an  enlightened  and  honest  public  is,  that  it  will  pass  a 
fair  verdict  and  decide  whether  it  be  a  humbug  or  not."  So 
the  enlightened  public  paid  its  quarters  of  a  dollar,  and  de 
cided  that  it  was  a  humbug,  and  Baruum  abode  by  their 


THE  RETURN  TO  AMERICA.  213 

decision,  and  then  sent  it  to  another  city  to  be  again  de 
cided  on. 

I  returned  to  Philadelphia,  and  to  my  father's  house,  and 
occupied  myself  with  such  odds  and  ends  of  magazine  and 
other  writing  as  came  in  my  way,  and  always  readiug  and 
studying.  I  was  very  much  depressed  at  this  time,  yet  not 
daunted.  My  year  in  Xew  York  had  familiarised  me  with 
characteristic  phases  of  American  life  and  manners  ;  my  fa 
ther  thought  I  had  gone  through  a  severe  mill  with  rather 
doubtful  characters,  and  once  remarked  that  I  should  not 
judge  too  harshly  of  business  men,  for  I  had  been  unusually 
unfortunate  in  my  experience. 

A  not  unfrequent  visitor  at  our  house  in  Philadelphia  was 
our  near  neighbour,  Henry  C.  Carey,  the  distinguished  scholar 
and  writer  on  political  economy,  who  had  been  so  extensively 
robbed  of  ideas  by  Bastiat,  and  who  retook  his  own,  not  with 
out  inflicting  punishment.  He  was  a  handsome,  black-eyed, 
white-haired  man,  with  a  very  piercing  glance.  During  the 
war,  when  men  were  sad  and  dull,  and  indeed  till  his  death, 
Mr.  Carey's  one  glorious  and  friendly  extravagance  was  to  as 
semble  every  Sunday  afternoon  all  his  intimates,  including 
any  distinguished  strangers,  at  his  house,  round  a  table,  in 
rooms  magnificently  hung  with  pictures,  and  give  everybody, 
ad  libitum,  hock  which  cost  him  sixteen  shillings  a  bottle.  I 
occasionally  obliged  him  by  translating  for  him  German  let 
ters,  &c.,  and  he  in  return  revised  my  pamphlet  on  Centrali 
zation  versus  State  Rights  in  1863.  II.  C.  Baird,  a  very  able 
writer  of  his  school,  was  his  nephew.  The  latter  had  two  or 
three  sisters,  whom  I  recall  as  charming  girls  while  I  was  a 
law-student.  There  were  many  beauties  in  Philadelphia  in 
those  days,  and  prominent  at  the  time,  though  as  yet  a  school 
girl,  was  the  since  far-famed  Emily  Schaumberg,  albeit  I  pre 
ferred  Miss  Belle  Fisher,  a  descendant  maternally  of  the  fa 
mous  Callender  beauties,  and  by  her  father's  side  allied  to 
Miss  Vining,  the  American  Queen  of  Beauty  during  the  Revo 
lution  at  Washington's  republican  court.  There  was  also  a 


214  MEMOIRS. 

Miss  Lewis,  whose  great  future  beauty  I  predicted  while  as 
yet  a  child,  to  the  astonishment  of  a  few,  "  which  prophecy 
was  marvellously  fulfilled."  Also  a  Miss  Wharton,  since  de 
ceased,  on  whom  George  Boker  after  her  death  wrote  an  ex 
quisite  poem.  The  two  were,  each  of  their  kind,  of  a  beauty 
which  I  have  rarely,  if  ever,  seen  equalled,  and  certainly  never 
surpassed,  in  Italy.  How  I  could  extend  the  list  of  those  too 
good  and  fair  to  live,  who  have  passed  away  from  my  knowl 
edge  ! — Miss  Nannie  Grigg — Miss  Julia  Biddle  ! — Mais  ou 
sont  Us  neiges  d'antan  ? 

Thus  far  my  American  experiences  had  not  paid  well.  I 
reflected  that  if  I  had  remained  in  Paris  I  should  have  done 
far  better.  When  I  left,  I  knew  that  the  success  of  Louis 
Napoleon  was  inevitable.  Three  newspapers  devoted  to  him 
had  appeared  on  the  Boulevards  in  one  day.  There  was 
money  at  work,  and  workmen  such  as  lived  in  the  Hotel  de 
Luxembourg,  gentlemen  who  could  not  only  plan  barricades 
but  fight  at  them,  were  in  great  demand,  as  honest  men  always 
are  in  revolutions.  Louis  Napoleon  was  very  anxious  indeed 
to  attach  to  him  the  men  of  February,  and  many  who  had 
not  done  one-tenth  or  one-twentieth  of  what  I  had,  had  the 
door  of  fortune  flung  wide  open  to  them.  My  police-dossier 
would  have  been  literally  a  diploma  of  honour  under  the  new 
Empire,  for,  after  all,  the  men  of  February,  Forty-eight,  were 
the  ones  who  led  off,  and  who  all  bore  the  highest  reputation 
for  honour.  All  that  I  should  have  required  would  have  been 
some  ambitious  man  of  means  to  aid — and  such  men  abound 
in  Paris — to  have  risen  fast  and  high.  As  it  turned  out,  it 
was  just  as  well  in  the  end  that  I  neither  went  in  as  a  political 
adventurer  under  Louis  Napoleon,  nor  wrote  the  Life  of  Bar- 
num.  But  no  one  knew  in  those  days  how  Louis  would 
turn  out. 

I  have  but  one  word  to  add  to  this.  The  secret  of  the 
Revolution  of  February  had  been  in  very  few  hands,  which 
was  the  secret  of  its  success.  Any  one  of  us  could  have 
secured  fortune  and  "  honours,"  or  at  least  "  orders,"  by  be- 


THE  RETURN   TO  AMERICA.  215 

tray  ing  it.  But  we  would  as  soon  have  secured  orders  for  the 
pit  of  hell  as  done  so.  This  was  known  to  Louis  Napoleon, 
and  he  must  have  realised  who  these  men  of  iron  integrity 
were,  for  he  was  very  curious  and  inquiring  on  this  subject. 
Now,  I  here  claim  it  as  a  great,  as  a  surpassing  honour  for 
France,  and  as  something  absolutely  without  parallel  in  his 
tory,  that  several  hundred  men  could  be  found  who  could 
not  only  keep  this  secret,  but  manage  so  very  wisely  as  they 
did.  Louis  Blanc  was  an  example  of  these  honest,  unselfish 
men.  I  came  to  know  him  personally  many  years  after, 
during  his  exile  in  London. 

One  morning  George  II.  Boker  came  to  me  and  informed 
me  that  there  was  a  writing  editor  wanted  on  the  Philadel 
phia  Evening  Bulletin.-  Its  proprietor  was  Alexander  Gum- 
mi  ngs.  The  actual  editor  was  Gibson  Bannister  Peacock, 
who  was  going  to  Europe  for  a  six  months'  tour,  and  some 
one  was  wanted  to  take  his  place.  Mr.  Peacock,  as  I  sub 
sequently  found,  was  an  excellent  editor,  and  a  person  of  will 
and  character.  He  was  skilled  in  music  and  a  man  of  culture. 
I  retain  grateful  remembrances  of  him.  I  was  introduced  and 
installed.  With  all  my  experience  I  had  not  yet  quite  acquired 
the  art  of  extemporaneous  editorial  composition.  My  first 
few  weeks  were  a  severe  trial,  but  I  succeeded.  I  was  ex 
pected  to  write  one  column  of  leader  every  day,  review  books, 
and  "  paragraph  "  or  condense  articles  to  a  brief  item  of  news. 
In  which  I  succeeded  so  well,  that  some  time  after,  when  a 
work  appeared  on  writing  for  the  press,  the  author,  who  did 
not  know  me  at  all,  cited  one  of  my  leaders  and  one  of  my 
paragraphs  as  models.  It  actually  made  little  impression  on 
me  at  the  time — I  was  so  busy. 

I  had  been  at  work  but  a  short  time,  when  one  day  Mr. 
Cummings  received  a  letter  from  Mr.  Peacock  in  Europe, 
which  he  certainly  had  hardly  glanced  at,  which  he  threw  to 
me  to  read.  I  did  so,  and  found  in  it  a  passage  to  this  effect : 
"  I  am  sorry  that  you  are  disappointed  as  to  Mr.  Leland,  but 
I  am  confident  that  you  will  find  him  perfectly  capable  in 


216  MEMOIRS. 

time."  This  gave  me  a  bitter  pang,  but  I  returned  it  to  Mr. 
Cummings,  who  soon  after  came  into  the  office  and  expressed 
frankly  his  great  regret,  saying  that  since  he  had  written  to 
Mr.  Peacock  he  had  quite  changed  his  opinion. 

I  enjoyed  this  new  life  to  the  utmost.  Mr.  Cummings, 
to  tell  the  truth,  pursued  a  somewhat  tortuous  course  in 
politics  and  religion.  He  was  a  Methodist.  One  day  our 
clerk  expressed  himself  as  to  the  latter  in  these  words : — 
"  They  say  he  is  a  Jumper,  but  others  think  he  has  gone  over 
to  the  Holy  Kollers."  The  Jumpers  were  a  sect  whose  mem 
bers,  when  the  Holy  Spirit  seized  them,  jumped  up  and  down, 
while  the  Holy  Rollers  under  such  circumstances  rolled  over 
and  over  on  the  floor.  We  also  advocated  Native  American 
ism  and  Temperance,  which  did  not  prevent  Mr.  Peacock 
and  myself  and  a  few  habitues  of  the  office  from  going  daily 
at  eleven  o'clock  to  a  neighbouring  lager-beer  Wirthschaft 
for  a  refreshing  glass  and  lunch.  One  day  the  bar- tender, 
Hermann,  a  very  nice  fellow,  said  to  me,  "  I  remember  when 
you  always  had  a  bottle  of  Rudesheimer  every  day  for  dinner. 
That  was  at  Herr  Lehr's,  in  Heidelberg.  I  always  waited 
on  you." 

Whoever  shall  write  a  history  of  Philadelphia  from  the 
Thirties  to  the  end  of  the  Fifties  will  record  a  popular  period 
of  turbulence  and  outrages  so  extensive  as  to  now  appear 
almost  incredible.  These  were  so  great  as  to  cause  grave 
doubts  in  my  mind  whether  the  severest  despotism,  guided 
by  justice,  would  not  have  been  preferable  to  such  repub 
lican  license  as  then  prevailed  in  the  city  of  Penn.  I  refer  to 
the  absolute  and  uncontrolled  rule  of  the  Volunteer  Fire  De 
partment,  which  was  divided  into  companies  (each  having 
clumsy  old  fire  apparatus  and  hose),  all  of  them  at  deadly 
feud  among  themselves,  and  fighting  freely  with  pistols, 
knives,  iron  spanners,  and  slung  shot,  whenever  they  met, 
whether  at  fires  or  in  the  streets.  Of  these  regular  firemen, 
fifty  thousand  were  enrolled,  and  to  these  might  have  been 
added  almost  as  many  more,  who  were  known  as  runners, 


THE  RETURN   TO  AMERICA.  217 

bummers,  and  hangers-on.  Among  the  latter  were  a  great 
number  of  incendiaries,  all  of  whom  were  well  known  to  and 
encouraged  by  the  firemen.  Whenever  the  latter  wished  to 
meet  some  rival  company,  either  to  test  their  mutual  skill  or 
engage  in  a  fight,  a  fire  was  sure  to  occur;  the  same  always 
happened  when  a  fire  company  from  some  other  city  visited 
Philadelphia. 

This  gave  occasion  to  an  incredible  amount  of  blackmail 
ing,  since  all  house-owners  were  frequently  called  on  to  con 
tribute  money  to  the  different  companies,  sometimes  as  a 
subscription  for  ball-tickets  or  repairs.  It  was  well  under 
stood,  and  generally  pretty  plainly  expressed,  that  those  who 
refused  to  pay  might  expect  to  be  burned  out  or  neglected. 
The  result  of  it  all  was  a  general  fear  of  the  firemen,  a  most 
degrading  and  contemptible  subservience  to  them  by  politi 
cians  of  all  kinds,  a  terrible  and  general  growth  and  spread 
of  turbulence  and  coarse  vulgarity  among  youth,  and  finally, 
such  a  prevalence  of  conflagration  that  no  one  who  owned  a 
house  could  hear  the  awful  tones  of  the  bell  of  Independence 
Hall  without  terror.  Fires  were  literally  of  nightly  occur 
rence,  and  that  they  were  invariably  by  night  was  due  to  the 
incendiary  "  runner."  A  slight  examination  of  the  news 
papers  and  cheap  broadside  literature  of  that  time  will  amply 
confirm  all  that  I  here  state.  "  Jakey  "  was  the  typical  fire 
man  ;  he  was  the  brutal  hero  of  a  vulgar  play,  and  the  ideal 
of  nineteen  youths  out  of  twenty.  For  a  generation  or  more 
all  society  felt  the  degrading  influences  of  this  rowdyism  in 
almost  every  circle — for  there  were  among  the  vast  majority 
of  men  not  very  many  who  respected,  looked  up  to,  or  cared 
for  anything  really  cultured  or  refined.  I  have  a  large  col 
lection  of  the  popular  songs  of  Philadelphia  of  that  time,  in 
all  of  which  there  is  a  striving  downwards  into  blackguardism 
and  brutality,  vileness  and  ignorance,  which  has  no  parallel 
in  the  literature  of  any  other  nation.  The  French  of  the 
Pere  Duchene  school  may  be  nastier,  and,  as  regards  aristo 
crats,  as  bloody,  but  for  general  all-round  vulgarity,  the  state 


218  MEMOIRS. 

of  morals  developed  among  the  people  at  the  time  of  which 
I  speak  was  literally  without  its  like.  It  is  very  strange  that 
Pliny  also  speaks  of  the  turbulence  or  rowdyism  of  the  fire 
men  of  Rome. 

I  remember  that  even  in  Walnut  Street,  below  Thirteenth 
Street,  before  my  father's  house  (this  being  then  by  far  the 
most  respectable  portion  of  Philadelphia),  it  happened  sev 
eral  nights  in  succession  that  rival  fire-companies,  running 
side  by  side,  fought  as  they  ran,  with  torches  and  knives, 
while  firing  pistols.  There  was  a  young  lady  named  Mary 
Bicking,  who  lived  near  us.  I  asked  her  one  day  if  she  had 
ever  seen  a  man  shot ;  and  when  she  answered  "  No,"  I  re 
plied,  "  Why  don't  you  look  out  of  your  window  some  night 
and  see  one?" 

The  southern  part  of  the  city  was  a  favourite  battle 
ground,  and  I  can  remember  hearing  ladies  who  lived  in 
Pine  Street  describe  how,  on  Sunday  summer  afternoons, 
they  could  always  hear,  singly  or  in  volleys,  the  shots  of  the 
revolvers  and  shouts  of  the  firemen  as  they  fought  in  Moya- 
mensing. 

Every  effort  to  diminish  these  evils,  or  to  improve  the 
fire  department  in  any  way  whatever,  was  vigorously  opposed 
by  the  rowdies,  who  completely  governed  the  city.  The  first 
fire-alarm  electric  telegraphs  were  a  great  offence  to  firemen, 
and  were  quietly  destroyed ;  the  steam-engines  were  regarded 
by  them  as  deadly  enemies.  But  the  first  great  efficient  re 
form  in  the  Philadelphia  fire  department,  and  the  most  radi 
cal  of  all,  was  the  establishment  of  a  fire-detective  depart 
ment  under  a  fire-marshal,  whose  business  it  was  to  investi 
gate  and  punish  all  cases  of  incendiarism.  For  it  was  simply 
incendiarism,  encouraged  and  supported  by  the  firemen 
themselves,  which  caused  nineteen-twentieths  of  all  these 
disasters;  it  was  the  fires  which  were  the  sole  support  of  the 
whole  system. 

I  was  much  indebted  for  understanding  all  this,  and  act 
ing  on  it  boldly,  as  I  did,  to  the  city  editor  and  chief  reporter 


THE   RETURN  TO  AMERICA.  219 

on  the  Evening  Bulletin,  Caspar  Souder.  The  Mayor  of  the 
city  was  Eichard  Vaux,  a  man  of  good  family  and  education, 
and  one  who  had  seen  in  his  time  cities  and  men,  he  having 
once  in  his  youth,  on  some  great  occasion,  waltzed  with  the 
Princess — now  Queen — Victoria.  Being  popular,  he  was 
called  Vaux  populi.  I  wrote  very  often  leaders  urging 
Mayor  Vaux  by  name  to  establish  a  fire-detective  depart 
ment.  So  great  was  the  indignation  caused  among  the  fire 
men,  that  I  incurred  no  small  risk  in  writing  them.  But  at 
last,  when  I  published  for  one  week  an  article  every  day 
clamouring  for  a  reform,  Mayor  Vaux — as  he  said  directly  to 
Mr.  Souder,  "  in  consequence  of  my  appeals  " — vigorously 
established  a  fire-marshal  with  two  aids.  By  my  request,  the 
office  was  bestowed  on  a  very  intelligent  and  well-educated 
person,  Dr.  Blackburne,  who  had  been  a  surgeon  in  the 
Mexican  war,  then  a  reporter  on  our  journal,  and  finally  a 
very  clever  superior  detective.  He  was  really  not  only  a  born 
detective,  but  to  a  marked  degree  a  man  of  scientific  attain 
ments  and  a  skilled  statistician.  His  anecdotes  and  com 
ments  as  to  pyromaniacs  of  different  kinds  were  as  entertain 
ing  and  curious  as  anything  recorded  by  Gaboriau.  Some  of 
the  most  interesting  experiences  of  my  life  were  when  I  went 
with  Dr.  Blackburne  from  place  to  place  where  efforts  had 
been  made  to  burn  houses,  and  noted  the  unerring  and  Red- 
Indian  skill  with  which  he  distinguished  the  style  of  work, 
and  identified  the  persons  and  names  of  the  incendiaries. 
One  of  these  "fire-bugs"  was  noted  for  invariably  setting 
fire  to  houses  in  such  a  manner  as  to  destroy  as  many  in 
mates  as  possible.  If  there  were  an  exit,  he  would  block  it 
up.  Dr.  Blackburne  took  me  to  a  wooden  house  in  which 
the  two  staircases  led  to  a  very  small  vestibule  about  three 
feet  square  before  the  front  door.  This  space  had  been  filled 
with  diabolical  ingenuity  with  a  barrel  full  of  combustibles, 
so  that  every  one  who  tried  to  escape  by  the  only  opening 
below  would  be  sure  to  perish.  Fortunately,  the  combusti 
bles  in  the  barrel  went  out  after  being  ignited.  "I  know 


220  MEMOIRS. 

that  fellow  by  his  style,"  remarked  the  Doctor,  "  and  I  shall 
arrest  him  at  four  o'clock  this  afternoon." 

This  fire-detective  department  and  the  appointment  of 
Blackburne  was  the  real  basis  and  beginning  of  all  the  re 
forms  which  soon  followed,  leading  to  the  abolition  of  the 
volunteer  system  and  the  establishment  of  paid  cmjrtoycs. 
And  as  I  received  great  credit  for  it  then,  my  work  being 
warmly  recognised  and  known  to  all  the  newspaper  reporters 
and  editors  in  the  city,  who  were  the  best  judges  of  it,  as  they 
indeed  are  of. all  municipal  matters,  I  venture  to  record  it 
here  as  something  worth  mentioning.  And  though  I  may 
truly  say  that  at  the  time  I  was  so  busy  that  I  made  no  ac 
count  of  many  such  things,  they  now  rise  up  from  time  to 
time  as  comforting  assurances  that  my  life  has  not  been  quite 
wasted. 

This  reminds  me  that  I  had  not  been  very  long  on  the 
newspaper,  and  had  just  begun  to  throw  out  editorials  with 
ease,  when  Mr.  Cummings  said  to  me  one  day  that  I  did  not 
realise  what  a  power  I  held  in  my  hand,  but  that  I  would 
soon  find  it  out.  Almost  immediately  after,  in  noticing  some 
article  or  book  which  was  for  sale  at  No.  24  Chestnut  Street, 
I  inadvertently  made  reference  to  24  Walnut  Street.  Very 
soon  came  the  proprietor  of  the  latter  place,  complaining 
that  I  had  made  life  a  burden  to  him,  because  fifty  people  had 
come  in  one  day  to  buy  something  which  he  had  not.  I 
reflected  long  and  deeply  on  this,  with  the  result  of  observing 
that  to  influence  people  it  is  not  at  all  necessary  to  argue 
with  them,  but  simply  be  able  to  place  before  their  eyes  such 
facts  as  you  choose.  It  is  very  common  indeed  to  hear  people 
in  England,  who  should  have  more  sense,  declare  that  "  no 
body  minds  what  the  newspapers  say."  But  the  truth  is, 
that  if  any  man  has  an  eye  to  read  and  memory  to  retain,  he 
must,  willy-nilly,  be  influenced  by  reading,  and  selection 
from  others  by  an  able  editor  is  often  only  a  most  ingenious 
and  artful  method  of  arguing.  It  has  very  often  happened 
to  me,  when  I  wanted  to  enforce  some  important  point,  to 


THE  RETURN  TO  AMERICA.  221 

clothe  it  as  an  anecdote  or  innocent  "  item,"  and  bid  the 
foreman  set  it  in  the  smallest  type  in  the  most  obscure  corner. 
And  the  reader  is  influenced  by  it,  utterly  unconsciously, 
just  as  we  all  are,  and  just  as  surely  as  all  reflection  follows 
sensation — as  it  ever  will — into  the  Ages  ! 

There  was  much  mutual  robbing  by  newspapers  of  tele 
graphic  news  in  those  days.  Once  it  befell  that  just  before 
the  Bulletin  went  to  press  a  part  of  the  powder-mills  of 
Dupont  Brothers  in  Delaware  blew  up,  and  we  received  a  few 
lines  of  telegram,  stating  that  Mr.  Dupont  himself  had  saved 
the  great  magazine  by  actually  walking  on  a  burning  build 
ing  with  buckets  of  water,  and  preventing  the  fire  from  ex 
tending,  at  a  most  incredible  risk  of  his  life.  Having  half- 
an-hour's  time,  I  expanded  this  telegram  into  something 
dramatic  and  thrilling.  A  great  New  York  newspaper,  think 
ing,  from  the  shortness  of  time  which  elapsed  in  publishing, 
that  it  was  all  telegraphed  to  us,  printed  it  as  one  of  its  own 
from  Delaware,  just  as  I  had  written  it  out — which  I  freely 
forgive,  for  verily  its  review  of  my  last  work  but  one  was  such 
as  to  make  me  inquire  of  myself  in  utter  amazement,  "  Can 
this  be  I  ?  " — "  so  gloriously  was  I  exalted  to  the  higher  life." 
The  result  of  this  review  was  a  sworn  and  firm  determination 
on  my  part  to  write  another  book  of  the  same  kind,  in  which 
I  should  show  myself  more  worthy  of  such  cordial  encourage 
ment  ;  which  latter  book  was  the  "  Etruscan  Legends."  I 
ought  indeed  to  have  dedicated  it  to  the  New  York  Tribune, 
a  journal  which  has  done  more  for  human  freedom  than  any 
other  publication  in  history. 

I  do  not  know  certainly  whether  the  brave  Dupont  whom 
I  mentioned  was  the  Charley  Dupont  who  went  to  school 
with  me  at  Jacob  Pierce's,  nor  can  I  declare  that  a  very 
gentlemanly  old  Frenchman  who  came  to  see  him  in  1832 
was  his  father  or  grandfather,  the  famous  old  Dupont  de 
1'Eure  of  the  French  Revolution.  But  I  suppose  it  was  the 
latter  who  carried  and  transformed  the  art  of  manufacturing 
moral  gunpowder  in  France  to  the  making  material  explosives 


222  MEMOIRS. 

in  America.  Yes,  moral  or  physical,  we  are  all  but  gun 
powder  and  smoke — jjtilvis  et  umbra  sumus  I 

There  was  a  morning  paper  in  Philadelphia  which  grieved 
me  sore  by  pilfering  my  news  items  as  I  wrote  them.  So  I 
one  day  gave  a  marvellous  account  of  the  great  Volatile 
Chelidoniau  or  Flying  Turtle  of  Surinam,  of  which  a  speci 
men  had  just  arrived  in  New  York.  It  had  a  shell  as  of 
diamonds  blent  with  emeralds  and  rubies,  and  bat-like  wings 
of  iridescent  hue  surpassing  the  opal,  and  a  tail  like  a  serpent. 
Our  contemporary,  nothing  doubting,  at  once  published  this 
as  original  matter  in  a  letter  from  Xew  York,  and  had  to 
bear  the  responsibility.  But  I  did  not  invest  my  inventive 
ness  wisely  ;  I  should  have  shared  the  idea  with  Barnum. 

There  was  in  Philadelphia  at  this  time  a  German  book 
seller  named  Christern.  It  was  the  thought  of  honourable 
and  devoted  men  which  recalled  him  to  my  mind.  I  had 
made  his  acquaintance  long  before  in  Munich,  where  he  had 
been  employed  in  the  principal  bookseller's  shop  of  the  city. 
His  "  store  "  in  Chestnut  Street,  Philadelphia,  became  a  kind 
of  club,  where  I  brought  such  of  my  friends  as  were  interested 
in  German  literature.  We  met  there  and  talked  German, 
and  examined  and  discussed  all  the  latest  European  works. 
He  had  a  burly,  honest,  rather  droll  assistant  named  Euhl, 
Avho  had  been  a  student  in  Munich,  then  a  Revolutionist  and 
exile,  and  finally  a  refugee  to  America.  To  this  shop,  too, 
came  Andrekovitch,  whom  I  had  last  known  in  Paris  as  a 
speculator  on  the  Bourse,  wearing  a  cloak  lined  with  sables. 
In  America  he  became  a  chemical  manufacturer.  When  at 
last  an  amnesty  was  proclaimed,  his  brother  asked  him  to 
return  to  Poland,  promising  a  support,  which  he  declined. 
He  too  was  an  honourable,  independent  man.  About  this 

time  the  great 1  forget  his  name ;  or  was  it  Schoffel  ? — 

who  had  been  President  of  the  Frankfort  Revolutionary 
Parliament,  opened  a  lager-beer  establishment  in  Race  Street. 
I  went  there  several  times  with  Ruhl. 

George  Boker  and  Frank  Wells,  who  subsequently  sue- 


THE  RETURN  TO  AMERICA.  223 

ceeded  me  on  the  Bulletin,  would  drop  in  every  day  after  the 
first  edition  had  gone  to  press,  and  then  there  would  be  a 
lively  time.  Frank  Wells  was,  par  eminence,  the  greatest 
punster  Philadelphia  ever  produced.  He  was  in  this  respect 
appalling.  We  had  a  sub-editor  or  writer  named  Ernest 
Wallace,  who  was  also  a  clever  humorist.  One  day  John 
Godfrey  Saxe  came  in.  He  was  accustomed  among  country 
auditors  and  in  common  sanctums  to  carry  everything  before 
him  with  his  jokes.  In  half-an-hour  we  extinguished  him. 
Having  declared  that  no  one  could  make  a  pun  on  his  name, 
which  he  had  not  heard  before,  Wallace  promptly  replied, 
"  It's  axing  too  much,  I  presume ;  but  did  you  ever  hear 
that  ?  "  Saxe  owned  that  he  had  not. 

George  H.  Boker,  whose  name  deserves  a  very  high  place 
in  American  literature  as  a  poet,  and  in  history  as  one  who 
was  of  incredible  service,  quietly  performed,  in  preserving 
the  Union  during  the  war,  was  also  eminently  a  wit  and 
humorist.  We  always  read  first  to  one  another  all  that  we 
wrote.  He  had  so  trained  himself  from  boyhood  to  self- 
restraint,  calmness,  and  the  nil  admirari  air,  which,  as  Dallas 
said,  is  "  the  Corinthian  ornament  of  a  gentleman  "  (I  may 
add  especially  when  of  Corinthian  brass),  that  his  admirable 
jests,  while  they  gained  in  clearness  and  applicability,  lost 
something  of  that  rattle  of  the  impromptu  and  headlong 
which  renders  Irish  and  Western  humour  so  easy.  I  recorded 
the  bon  mots  and  merry  stories  which  passed  among  us  all  in 
the  sanctum  in  articles  for  our  weekly  newspaper,  under  the 
name  of  "  Social  Hall  Sketches  "  (a  social  hall  in  the  West  is 
a  steamboat  smoking-room).  Every  one  of  us  received  a 
name.  Mr.  Peacock  was  Old  Hurricane,  and  George  Boker, 
being  asked  what  his  pseudonym  should  be,  selected  that  of 
Bullfrog.  These  "  Social  Hall  Sketches  "  had  an  extended 
circulation  in  American  newspapers,  some  for  many  years. 
One  entirely  by  me,  entitled  "  Opening  Oysters,"  is  to  be 
found  in  English  almanacs,  &c.,  to  this  day. 

It  was,  I  think,  or  am  sure,  in  1855  that  some  German  in 


22J:  MEMOIRS. 

Pennsylvania,  instead  of  burying  his  deceased  wife,  burned 
the  body.  This  called  forth  a  storm  of  indignant  attack  in 
the  newspapers.  It  was  called  an  irreligious,  indecent  act. 
I  wrote  an  editorial  in  which  I  warmly  defended  it.  Ac 
cording  to  Bulwer  in  the  "  Last  Days  of  Pompeii,"  the  early 
Christians  practised  it.  Even  to  this  day  urns  and  torches 
are  common  symbols  in  Christian  burying-grounds,  and  we 
speak  of  "  ashes  "  as  more  decent  than  mouldering  corpses. 
And,  finally,  I  pointed  out  the  great  advantage  which  it 
would  be  to  the  coal  trade  of  Pennsylvania.  A  man  of  cul 
ture  said  to  me  that  it  was  the  boldest  editorial  which  he  had 
ever  read.  Such  as  it  was,  I  believe  that  it  was  the  first  arti 
cle  written  in  modern  times  advocating  cremation.  If  I  am 
wrong,  I  am  willing  to  be  corrected. 

To  those  who  are  unfamiliar  with  it,  the  life  in  an  Amer 
ican  newspaper  office  seems  singularly  eventful  and  striking. 
A  friend  of  mine  who  visited  a  sanctum  (ours)  for  the  first 
time,  said,  as  he  left,  that  he  had  never  experienced  such  an 
interesting  hour  in  his  life.  Firstly,  came  our  chief  city 
reporter,  exulting  in  the  manner  in  which  he  had  circum 
vented  the  police,  and,  despite  all  their  efforts,  got,  by  ways  that 
were  dark,  at  all  the  secrets  of  a  brand-new  horrible  murder. 
Secondly,  a  messenger  with  an  account  of  how  I,  individ 
ually,  had  kicked  up  the  very  devil  in  the  City  Councils,  and 
set  the  Mayor  to  condemning  us,  by  a  leader  discussing  cer 
tain  municipal  abuses.  Thirdly,  another,  to  tell  how  I  had 
swept  one-half  the  city  by  an  article  exposing  its  neglect, 
and  how  the  sweepers  and  dirt-carts  were  busy  where  none 
had  been  before  for  weeks,  and  how  the  contractor  for  cleaning 
wanted  to  shoot  me.  Fourthly,  a  visit  from  some  great  dig 
nitary,  who  put  his  dignity  very  much  a  Vabri  in  his  pocket, 
to  solicit  a  puff.  Fifthly,  a  lady  who,  having  written  a  very 
feeble  volume  of  tales  which  had  merely  been  gently  com 
mended  in  our  columns,  came  round  in  a  rage  to  shame  me 
by  sarcasm,  begging  me  as  a  parting  shot  to  at  least  read  a 
few  lines  of  her  work.  Sixthly,  a  communication  from  a 


THE  RETURN  TO   AMERICA.  225 

great  New  York  family,  who,  having  been  requested  to  send 
a  short  description  of  a  remarkable  wedding-cake,  sent  me 
one  hundred  and  fifty  pages  of  minute  history  of  all  their 
ancestors  and  honours,  with  strict  directions  that  not  a  line 
should  be  omitted,  and  the  article  printed  at  once  most  con 
spicuously.*  Seventhly,  .  .  .  but  this  is  a  very  mild  speci 
men  of  what  Avent  on  all  the  time  during  office-hours.  And 
on  this  subject  alone  I  could  write  a  small  book. 

Now,  at  this  time  there  came  about  a  very  great  change 
in  my  life,  or  an  event  which  ultimately  changed  it  alto 
gether.  My  father  had,  for  about  two  years  past,  fallen  into 
a  very  sad  state  of  mind.  His  large  property  between  Chest 
nut  and  Bank  Streets  paid  very  badly,  and  his  means  became 
limited.  I  was  seriously  alarmed  as  to  his  health.  My  dear 
mother  had  become,  I  may  say,  paralytic;  but,  in  truth,  the 
physicians  could  never  explain  the  disorder.  To  the  last  she 
maintained  her  intellect,  and  a  miraculous  cheerfulness  un 
impaired. 

All  at  once  a  strange  spirit,  as  of  new  life,  came  suddenly 
over  my  father.  I  cannot  think  of  it  without  awe.  He 
Avent  to  Avork  like  a  young  man,  shook  off  his  despair,  finan 
ciered  with  marvellous  ability,  borrowed  money,  collected  old 
and  long-despaired  of  debts,  tore  down  the  old  hotel  and  the 
other  buildings,  planned  and  bargained  Avith  architects— it 
Avas  then  that  I  designed  the  fa9ade  before  described — and 
built  six  stores,  tAvo  of  them  very  handsome  granite  buildings, 
on  the  old  site.  In  short,  he  made  of  it  a  Arery  valuable 
estate.  And  as  he  superintended  with  great  skill  and  ability 
the  smallest  details  of  the  building,  Avhich  was  for  that  time 
remarkably  Avell  executed,  I  thought  I  recognised  Avhence  it 
Avas  that  I  derived  the  strongly  developed  tendency  for 
architecture  Avhich  I  haA'e  always  possessed.  I  have  since 
made  400  copies  of  old  churches  in  England. 

This  was  a  happy  period,  Avhen  life  was  Avithout  a  cloud, 

*  (Here  I  forgot  myself — this  occurred  in  New  York.) 


226  MEMOIRS. 

excepting  my  mother's  trouble.  As  my  father  could  now  well 
afford  it,  he  made  me  an  allowance,  which,  with  my  earnings 
from  the  Bulletin  and  other  occasional  literary  work,  justified 
me  in  getting  married.  I  had  had  a  long  but  still  very 
happy  engagement.  So  we  were  married  by  the  Episcopal 
ceremony  at  the  house  of  my  father-in-law  in.  Tenth  Street, 
and  a  very  happy  wedding  it  was.  I  remember  two  incidents. 
Before  the  ceremony,  the  Reverend  Mr.,  subsequently 
Bishop  Wilmer,  took  me,  with  George  Boker,  into  a  room 
and  explained  to  me  the  symbolism  of  the  marriage-ring. 
Now,  if  there  was  a  subject  on  earth  which  I,  the  old  friend 
of  Creuzer  of  Heidelberg,  and  master  of  Friedrich's  Sym- 
bolik,  and  Durandus,  and  the  Avork  "  On  Finger-Rings," 
knew  all  about,  it  was  that;  and  I  never  shall  forget  the 
droll  look  which  Boker  threw  at  me  as  the  discourse  pro 
ceeded.  But  I  held  my  peace,  though  sadly  tempted  to  set 
forth  my  own  archffiological  views  on  the  subject. 

The  second  was  this :  Philadelphia,  as  Mr.  Philipps  has 
said,  abounds  in  folk-lore.  Some  one  suggested  that  the 
wedding  would  be  a  lucky  one  because  there  was  only  one 
clergyman  present.  But  I  remarked  that  among  our  col 
oured  waiters  there  was  one  who  had  a  congregation  (my 
wife's  cousin,  by  the  way,  had  a  coloured  bishop  for  coach 
man).  However,  this  sable  cloud  did  not  disturb  us. 

We  went  to  New  York,  and  were  visited  by  many  friends, 
and  returned  to  Philadelphia.  We  lived  for  the  first  year  at 
the  La  Pierre  Hotel,  where  we  met  with  many  pleasant  peo 
ple,  such  as  Thackeray,  Thalberg,  Ole  Bull,  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Choteau,  of  St.  Louis,  and  others.  Of  Thalberg  I  have 
already  remarked,  in  my  notes  to  my  translation  of  Heine's 
Salon,  that  he  impressed  me  as  a  very  gentlemanly,  dignified, 
and  quietly  remarkable  man,  whom  it  would  be  difficult 
to  readily  or  really  understand.  "  He  had  unmistakably 
the  manner  peculiar  to  many  great  Germans,  which,  as  I 
have  elsewhere  observed,  is  perceptible  in  the  maintien  and 
features  of  Goethe,  Humboldt,  Bismarck,"  and  Brugsch,  of 


THE   RETURN  TO  AMERICA.  227 

Berlin  (whom  I  learned  to  know  in  later  years).  Thalberg 
gave  me  the  impression,  which  grew  on  me,  of  a  man  who 
knew  many  things  besides  piano-playing,  and  that  he  was 
born  to  a  higher  specialty.  He  was  dignified  but  affable. 
I  remember  that  one  day,  when  he,  or  some  one  present, 
remarked  that  his  name  was  not  a  common  one,  I  made  him 
laugh  by  declaring  that  it  occurred  in  two  pieces  in  an  old 
German  ballad : — 

"  Ich  that  am  BERGE  stehen, 

Uud  schaute  in  das  THAL  ; 
Da  hab'  ich  sie  gesehen, 
Zura  aller  letzten  mal." 

"  I  stood  upon  the  mountain, 

And  looked  the  valley  o'er ; 
There  I  indeed  beheld  her, 
But  saw  her  never  more." 

Thalberg's  playing  was  marvellously  like  his  character  or 
himself  :  Heine  calls  it  gentlemanly.  Thackeray  was  marked 
in  his  manner,  and  showed  impulse  and  energy  in  small  utter 
ances.  I  may  err,  but  I  do  not  think  he  could  have  endured 
solitude  or  too  much  of  himself.  He  was  eminently  social, 
and  rather  given  at  times  to  reckless  (not  deliberate  or  spite 
ful),  sarcastic  or  "  ironic  "  sallies,  in  which  he  did  not,  with 
Americans,  generally  come  off  "first  best."  There  was  a 
very  beautiful  lady  in  Boston  with  whom  the  great  novelist 
was  much  struck,  and  whom  he  greatly  admired,  as  he  sent 
her  two  magnificent  bronzes.  Having  dined  one  evening  at 
her  house,  he  remarked  as  they  all  entered  the  dining-room, 
"  Xow  I  suppose  that,  according  to  your  American  custom, 
we  shall  all  put  our  feet  up  on  the  chimney-piece."  "  Cer 
tainly,"  replied  his  hostess,  "  and  as  your  legs  are  so  much 
longer  than  the  others,  you  may  put  your  feet  on  top  of  the 
looking-glass,"  which  was  about  ten  feet  from  the  ground. 
Thackeray,  I  was  told,  was  offended  at  this,  and  showed  it ; 
he  being  of  the  "give  but  not  take "  kind.  One  day  he  said 
to  George  Boker,  when  both  were  looking  at  Diirer's  etching 


228  MEMOIRS. 

of  "  Death,  Knight,  and  the  Devil,"  of  which  I  possess  a  fine 
copy,  "  Every  man  has  his  devil  whom  he  cannot  overcome  ; 
I  have  two — laziness,  and  love  of  pleasure."  I  remarked, 
"  Then  why  the  devil  seek  to  overcome  them  ?  Is  it  not 
more  noble  and  sensible  to  yield  where  resistance  is  in  vain, 
than  to  fight  to  the  end  ?  Is  it  not  a  maxim  of  war,  that  he 
who  strives  to  defend  a  defenceless  place  must  be  put  to 
death  ?  Why  not  give  in  like  a  man  ?  " 

I  had  just  published  my  translation  of  Heine's  Reisebildcr, 
and  Bayard  Taylor  had  a  copy  of  it.  He  went  in  company 
with  Thackeray  to  New  York,  and  told  me  subsequently  that 
they  had  read  the  work  aloud  between  them  alternately  with 
roars  of  laughter  till  it  was  finished ;  that  Thackeray  praised 
my  translation  to  the  skies,  and  that  his  comments  and  droll 
remarks  on  the  text  were  delightful.  Thackeray  was  a  per 
fect  German  scholar,  and  well  informed  as  to  all  in  the  book. 

Apropos  of  Heine,  Ole  Bull  had  known  him  very  well, 
and  described  to  me  his  brilliancy  in  the  most  distinguished 
literary  society,  where  in  French  the  German  wit  bore  away 
the  palm  from  all  Frenchmen.  "  He  flashed  and  sprayed  in 
brilliancy  like  a  fountain."  Ole  Bull  by  some  chance  had 
heard  much  of  me,  and  we  became  intimate.  He  told  me 
that  I  had  unwittingly  been  to  him  the  cause  of  great  loss. 
I  had,  while  in  London,  become  acquainted  with  an  odd  and 
rather  scaly  fish,  a  German  who  had  been  a  courier,  who  was 
the  keeper  of  a  small  cafe  near  Leicester  Square,  and  who 
enjoyed  a  certain  fame  as  the  inventor  of  the  poses  plastiques 
or  living  statues,  so  popular  in  1848.  This  man  soon  came 
over  to  America,  and  called  on  me,  wanting  to  borrow  money, 
whereupon  I  gave  him  the  cold  shoulder.  According  to  Ole 
Bull,  he  went  to  the  great  violinist,  represented  himself  as 
my  friend  and  as  warmly  commended  by  me,  and  the  heed 
less  artist,  instead  of  referring  to  me  directly,  took  him  as 
impresario ;  the  result  being  that  he  ere  long  ran  away  with 
the  money,  and,  what  was  quite  as  bad,  Ole  Bull's  prima- 
donna,  who  was,  as  I  understood,  specially  dear  to  him.  Ole 


THE  RETURN  TO  AMERICA.  229 

Bull's  playing  has  been,  as  I  think,  much  underrated  by  cer 
tain  writers  of  reminiscences.  There  was  in  it  a  marvellous 
originality. 

While  I  was  there,  in  the  La  Pierre  Hotel,  the  first  great 
meeting  was  held  at  which  the  Republican  party  was  organ 
ised.  Though  not  an  appointed  delegate  from  our  State,  I, 
as  an  editor,  took  some  part  in  it.  Little  did  we  foresee  the 
tremendous  results  which  were  to  ensue  from  that  meeting ! 
It  was  second  only  to  the  signing  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence,  and  on  it  was  based  the  greatest  struggle  known 
to  history.  I  could  have,  indeed,  been  inscribed  as  a  consti 
tutional  member  of  it  for  the  asking  or  writing  my  name, 
but  that  appeared  to  me  and  others  then  to  be  a  matter  of 
no  consequence  compared  to  the  work  in  hand.  So  the 
Bulletin  became  Republican;  Messrs.  Cummings  and  Pea 
cock  seeing  that  that  was  their  manifest  destiny. 

From  that  day  terrible  events  began  to  manifest  them 
selves  in  American  politics.  The  South  attempted  to  seize 
Kansas  with  the  aid  of  border  ruffians ;  Sumner  was  caned 
from  behind  while  seated  ;  the  Southern  press  became  out 
rageous  in  its  abuse  of  the  North,  and  the  North  here  and 
there  retaliated.  All  my  long-suppressed  ardent  Abolition 
spirit  now  found  vent,  and  for  a  time  I  was  allowed  to  write 
as  I  pleased.  A  Richmond  editor  paid  me  the  compliment 
of  saying  that  the  articles  in  the  Bulletin  were  the  bitterest 
and  cleverest  published  in  the  North,  but  inquired  if  it  was 
wise  to  manifest  such  feeling.  I,  who  felt  that  the  great 
strife  was  imminent,  thought  it  was.  Mr.  Cummings 
thought  differently,  and  I  was  checked.  For  years  there 
were  many  who  believed  that  the  fearfully  growing  cancer 
could  be  cured  with  rose-water ;  as,  for  instance,  Edward 
Everett. 

While  on  the  Bulletin  I  translated  Heine's  Pictures  of 
Travel.  For  it,  poetry  included,  I  was  to  receive  three  shil 
lings  a  page. .  Even  this  was  never  paid  me  in  full ;  I  was 
obliged  to  take  part  of  the  monev  in  engravings  and  books, 
11 


230  MEMOIRS. 

and  the  publisher  failed.  It  passed  into  other  hands,  and 
many  thousands  of  copies  were  sold  ;  from  all  of  which  I,  of 
course,  got  nothing.  I  also  became  editor  of  Graham's 
Magazine,  which  I  filled  recklessly  with  all  or  any  kind  of 
literary  matter  as  I  best  could,  little  or  nothing  being  allowed 
for  contributions.  However,  I  raised  the  circulation  from 
almost  nothing  to  17,000.  For  this  I  received  fifty  dollars 
(£10)  per  month.  When  I  finally  left  it,  the  proprietors 
were  eighteen  months  in  arrears  due,  and  tried  to  evade  pay 
ment,  though  I  had  specified  a  regular  settlement  every 
month.  Finally  they  agreed  to  pay  me  in  monthly  instal 
ments  of  fifty  dollars  each,  and  fulfilled  the  engagement. 

Talking  of  the  South,  I  forget  now  at  what  time  it  was 
that  Barnum's  Museum  in  Philadelphia  was  burned,  but  I 
shall  never  forget  a  droll  incident  which  it  occasioned.  Op 
posite  it  was  a  hotel,  and  the  heat  was  so  tremendous  that 
the  paint  on  the  hotel  was  scorched,  and  it  had  begun  to  burn 
in  places.  By  the  door  stood  a  friend  of  mine  in  great  dis 
tress.  I  asked  what  was  the  matter.  He  replied  that  in  the 
hotel  was  a  Southern  lady  who  would  not  leave  her  trunks, 
in  which  there  were  all  her  diamonds  and  other  valuables, 
and  that  he  could  not  find  a  porter  to  bring  them  down.  I 
was  strong  enough  in  those  days.  "  What  is  the  number 
of  her  room  ?  "  "  No.  22."  I  rushed  up — it  was  scorching 
hot  by  this  time — burst  into  No.  22,  and  found  a  beautiful 
young  lady  in  dire  distress.  I  said  abruptly,  "  I  come  from 
Mr. ;  where  are  your  trunks  ?  "  She  began  to  cry  con 
fusedly,  "  Oh,  you  can  do  nothing ;  they  are  very  heavy." 
Seeing  the  two  large  trunks,  I  at  once,  without  a  word, 
caught  one  by  each  handle,  dragged  them  after  me  bumping 
downstairs,  the  lady  following,  to  the  door,  where  I  found  my 
friend,  who  had  a  carriage  in  waiting.  From  the  lady's  sub 
sequent  account,  it  appeared  that  I  had  occasioned  her  much 
more  alarm  than  pleasure.  She  said  that  all  at  once  a  great 
tall  gentleman  burst  into  her  room,  seized  her  trunks  without 
a  word  of  apology,  and  dragged  them  downstairs  like  a  giant ; 


THE  RETURN  TO  AMERICA.  231 

she  was  never  so  startled  in  all  her  life  !  It  was  explained  to 
me  that,  as  in  the  South  only  negroes  handle  trunks,  the  lady 
could  not  regard  me  exactly  as  a  gentleman.  She  was  within 
a  short  ace  of  being  burnt  up,  trunks  and  all,  but  could  not 
forget  that  she  was  from  the  "  Sa-outh,"  and  must  needs 
show  it. 

Apropos  of  this  occurrence,  I  remember  something  odd 
which  took  place  on  the  night  of  the  same  day.  There  was  a 
stylish  drinking-place,  kept  by  a  man  named  Guy,  in  Seventh 
Street.  In  the  evening,  when  it  was  most  crowded,  there  en 
tered  a  stranger,  described  as  having  been  fully  seven  feet 
high,  and  powerful  in  proportion,  who  kept  very  quiet,  but 
who,  on  being  chaffed  as  the  giant  escaped  from  Barnum's 
Museum,  grew  angry,  and  ended  by  clearing  out  the  bar 
room — driving  thirty  men  before  him  like  flies.  Aghast  at 
such  a  tremendous  feat,  one  who  remained,  asked,  "  Who  in 
God's  wrath  are  you  ? — haven't  you  a  name  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  have  a  name,"  replied  the  Berserker ;  "Pm 
CHARLES  LELAND  !  "  saying  which  he  vanished. 

The  next  day  it  was  all  over  Philadelphia  that  I  had 
cleared  out  John  Guy's  the  night  before,  sans  merci.  True, 
I  am  not  seven  feet  high,  but  some  men  (like  stories)  expand 
enormously  when  inflated  or  mad  ;  so  my  denial  was  attrib 
uted  to  sheer  modesty.  But  I  recognised  in  the  Charles 
Lcland  a  mysterious  cousin  of  mine,  who  was  really  seven 
feet  high,  who  had  disappeared  for  many  years,  and  of  whom 
I  have  never  heard  since. 

While  editing  Graham's  Magazine,  I  had  one  day  a  space 
to  fill.  In  a  hurry  I  knocked  off  "  Hans  Breitmann's  Barty  " 
(1856).  I  gave  it  no  thought  whatever.  Soon  after,  Clark 
republished  it  in  the  Knickerbocker,  saying  that  it  was  evi 
dently  by  me.  I  little  dreamed  that  in  days  to  come  I  should 
be  asked  in  Egypt,  and  on  the  blue  Mediterranean,  and  in 
every  country  in  Europe,  if  I  was  its  author.  I  wrote  in  those 
days  a  vast  number  of  such  anonymous  drolleries,  many  of 
them,  I  daresay,  quite  as  good,  in  Graham's  Magazine  and 


232  MEMOIRS. 

the  Weekly  Bulletin,  &c.,  but  I  took  no  heed  of  them.  They 
were  probably  appropriated  in  due  time  by  the  authors  of 
"  Beautiful  Snow." 

I  began  to  weary  of  Philadelphia.  New  York  was  a  wider 
field  and  more  congenial  to  me.  Mr.  Cummings  had  once, 
during  a  financial  crisis,  appealed  to  my  better  feelings  very 
touchingly  to  let  my  salary  be  reduced.  I  let  myself  be 
touched — in  the  pocket.  Better  times  came,  but  my  salary 
did  not  rise.  Mr.  Cummings,  knowing  that  my  father  was 
wealthy,  wanted  me  to  put  a  large  sum  into  his  paper,  assur 
ing  me  that  it  would  pay  me  fifteen  per  cent.  I  asked  how 
that  could  be  possible  when  he  could  only  afford  to  pay  me  so 
very  little  for  such  hard  work.  He  chuckled,  and  said, 
"  That  is  the  way  we  make  our  money."  Then  I  determined 
to  leave. 

Mr.  George  Ripley  and  Charles  A.  Dana,  of  the  Tribune, 
were  then  editing  in  New  York  Appletons1  Cyclopaedia.  Mr. 
Eipley  had  several  times  shown  himself  my  friend  ;  he  be 
longed  to  the  famous  old  band  of  Boston  Transcendental- 
ists  who  were  at  Brook  Farm.  I  wrote  to  him  asking  if  I 
could  earn  as  much  at  the  Cyclopcedia  as  I  got  from  the 
Bulletin.  He  answered  affirmatively  ;  so  we  packed  up  and 
departed.  I  had  a  sister  in  New  York  who  had  married  a 
Princeton  College-mate  named  Thorp.  We  went  to  their 
house  in  Twenty-second  Street  near  Broadway,  and  arranged 
it  so  as  to  remain  there  during  the  winter. 

In  the  Cyclopcedia  rooms  I  found  abundance  of  work, 
though  it  was  less  profitable  than  I  expected.  For  after  an 
article  was  written,  it  passed  through  the  hands  of  six  or 
seven  revisers,  who  revised  not  always  wisely,  and  frequently 
far  too  well.  They  made  their  objections  in  writing,  and  we, 
the  writers,  made  ours.  I  often  gained  a  victory,  but  the  vic 
tory  cost  a  great  deal  of  work,  and  of  time  which  was  not  paid 
for.  Altogether,  I  wrote  about  two  hundred  articles,  great 
and  small,  for  the  Cyclopedia.  On  the  other  hand,  there 
was  pleasant  and  congenial  society  among  my  fellow-work- 


THE  RETURN  TO  AMERICA.  233 

men,  and  the  labour  itself  was  immensely  instructive.  If 
any  man  wishes  to  be  well  informed,  let  him  work  on  a  cyclo 
paedia.  As  I  could  read  several  languages,  I  was  addition 
ally  useful  at  times.  The  greatest  conciseness  of  style  is  re 
quired  for  such  work.  In  German  cyclopaedias  this  is  carried 
to  a  fault. 

After  a  while  I  began  to  find  that  there  was  much  more 
money  to  be  made  outside  the  Cyclopaedia  than  in  it.  Wil 
liam  H.  Hurlbut,  whom  I  had  once  seen  so  nearly  shot,  had 
been  the  "  foreign  editor "  of  the  New  York  Times.  Mr. 
Henry  Raymond,  its  proprietor,  had  engaged  a  Mr.  Ham 
mond  to  come  after  some  six  months  to  take  his  place,  and  I 
was  asked  to  fill  it  ad  interim.  I  did  so,  so  much  to  Mr. 
Raymond's  satisfaction,  that  he  much  regretted  when  I  left 
that  he  had  not  previously  engaged  me.  He  was  always  very 
kind  to  me.  He  said  that  now  and  then,  whenever  he 
wanted  a  really  superior  art  criticism,  I  should  write  it.  He 
was  quite  right,  for  there  were  not  many  reporters  in  New 
York  who  had  received  such  an  education  in  aesthetics  as 
mine.  When  Patti  made  her  debut  in  opera  for  the  first 
time,  I  was  the  only  writer  who  boldly  predicted  that  she 
would  achieve  the  highest  lyrical  honours  or  become  a  "  star  " 
of  the  first  magnitude.  Apropos  of  Hurlbut,  I  heard  many 
years  after,  in  England,  that  a  certain  well-known  litterateur, 
who  was  not  one  of  his  admirers,  having  seen  him  seated  in 
close  tete-a-tete  with  a  very  notorious  and  unpopular  charac 
ter,  remarked  regretfully,  "  Just  to  think  that  with  one  pis 
tol-bullet  both  might  have  been  settled  !  "  Hurlbut  was,  even 
as  a  boy,  very  handsome,  with  a  pale  face  and  black  eyes,  and 
extremely  clever,  being  facile  princcps,  the  head  of  every  class, 
and  extensively  read.  But  there  was  "  a  screw  loose  "  some 
where  in  him.  He  was  subject,  but  not  very  frequently,  to 
such  fits  of  passion  or  rage,  that  he  literally  became  blind  while 
they  lasted.  I  saw  him  one  day  in  one  of  these  throw  his 
arms  about  and  stamp  on  the  ground,  as  if  unable  to  behold 
any  one.  I  once  heard  a  young  lady  in  New  York  profess 


234  MEMOIRS. 

unbounded  admiration  for  him,  because  "  he  looked  so 
charmingly  like  the  devil."  For  many  years  the  New  York 
Herald  always  described  him  as  the  Reverend  Mephistopheles 
Hurlbut.  There  was  another  very  beautiful  lady  who  after 
wards  died  a  strange  and  violent  death,  as  also  a  friend  of 
mine,  an  editor  in  New  York,  both  of  whom  narrated  to  me 
at  very  great  length  "  a  grotesque  Iliad  of  the  wild  career  " 
of  this  remarkable  man. 

It  never  rains  but  it  pours.  Frank  Leslie,  who  had  been 
with  me  on  Barnum's  Illustrated  News,  was  now  publishing 
half-a-dozen  periodicals  and  newspapers,  and  offered  me  a 
fair  price  to  give  him  my  mornings.  I  did  so.  Unfor 
tunately,  my  work  was  not  specified,  and  he  retained  his  old 
editors,  who  naturally  enough  did  not  want  me,  although  they 
treated  me  civilly  enough.  One  of  these  was  Thomas  Powell, 
who  had  seen  a  great  deal  of  all  the  great  English  writers 
of  the  last  generation.  But  there  was  much  rather  shady, 
shaky  Bohemianism  about  the  frequenters  of  our  sanctum, 
and,  all  things  considered,  it  was  a  pity  that  I  ever  entered 
it. 

Und  noch  iveiter.  There  was  published  in  New  York  at 
that  time  (1860)  an  illustrated  comic  weekly  called  Vanity 
Fair.  There  was  also  in  the  city  a  kind  of  irregular  club 
known  as  the  Bohemians,  who  had  been  inspired  by  Murger's 
novel  of  that  name  to  imitate  the  life  of  its  heroes.  They 
met  every  evening  at  a  lager-beer  restaurant  kept  by  a  Ger 
man  named  Pfaff.  For  a  year  or  two  they  made  a  great  sen 
sation  in  New  York.  Their  two  principal  men  were  Henry 
Clapp  and  Fitz-James  O'Brien.  Then  there  were  Frank 
Wood  and  George  Arnold,  W.  Winter,  C.  Gardette,  and 
others.  Wood  edited  Vanity  Fair,  and  all  the  rest  contrib 
uted  to  it.  There  was  some  difficulty  or  other  between  Wood 
and  Mr.  Stephens,  the  gcrant  of  the  weekly,  and  Wood  left, 
followed  by  all  the  clan.  I  was  called  in  in  the  emergency, 
and  what  with  writing  myself,  and  the  aid  of  E.  H.  Stoddard, 
T.  B.  Aldrich,  and  a  few  more,  we  made  a  very  creditable 


THE  RETURN  TO  AMERICA.  235 

appearance  indeed.  Little  by  little  the  Bohemians  all  came 
back,  and  all  went  well. 

Now  I  must  here  specify,  for  good  reasons,  that  I  held 
myself  very  strictly  aloof  from  the  Bohemians,  save  in  busi 
ness  affairs.  This  was  partly  because  I  was  married,  and  I 
never  saw  the  day  in  my  life  when  to  be  regarded  as  a  real 
Bohemian  vagabond,  or  shiftless  person,  would  not  have 
given  me  the  horrors.  I  would  have  infinitely  preferred  the 
poorest  settled  employment  to  such  life.  I  mention  this  be 
cause  a  very  brilliant  and  singular  article  entitled  "  Charles 
G.  Leland  Vennemi  des  Allemands"  (this  title  angered  me), 
which  appeared  in  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes  in  1871, 
speaks  of  me  by  implication  as  a  frequenter  of  Pfaff' s,  declar 
ing  that  I  there  introduced  Artemus  Ward  to  the  Bohemian 
brotherhood,  and  that  it  was  entirely  due  to  me  that  Mr. 
Browne  was  brought  out  before  the  American  world.  This 
is  quite  incorrect.  Mr.  Browne  had  made  a  name  by  two  or 
three  very  popular  sketches  before  I  had  ever  seen  him.  But 
it  is  very  true  that  I  aided  him  to  write,  and  suggested  and 
encouraged  the  series  of  sketches  which  made  him  famous, 
as  he  himself  frankly  and  generously  declared,  for  Charles 
Browne  was  at  heart  an  honest  gentleman,  if  there  ever  was 
one  ;  which  is  the  one  thing  in  life  better  than  success. 

Mr.  Stephens  realising  that  I  needed  an  assistant,  and  ob 
serving  that  Browne's  two  sketches  of  the  Showman's  letter 
and  the  Mormons  had  made  him  well  known,  invited  him  to 
take  a  place  in  our  office.  He  was  a  shrewd,  nai'f,  but  at  the 
same  time  modest  and  unassuming  young  man.  He  was  a 
native  of  Maine,  but  familiar  with  the  West.  Quiet  as  he 
seemed,  in  three  weeks  he  had  found  out  everything  in  New 
York.  I  could  illustrate  this  by  a  very  extraordinary  fact, 
but  I  have  not  space  for  everything.  I  proposed  to  him  to 
continue  his  sketches.  "  Write,"  I  said,  "  a  paper  on  the 
Shakers."  He  replied  that  he  knew  nothing  about  them. 
I  had  been  at  Lenox,  Massachusetts,  where  I  had  often  gone 
to  New  Lebanon  and  seen  their  strange  worship  and  dances, 


236  MEMOIRS. 

and  while  on  the  Illustrated  News  had  had  a  conference 
with  their  elders  on  an  article  on  the  Shakers.  So  I  told  him 
what  I  knew,  and  he  wrote  it,  making  it  a  condition  that  I 
would  correct  it.  He  wrote  the  sketch,  and  others.  He  was 
very  slow  at  composition,  which  seemed  strange  to  me,  who 
was  accustomed  to  write  everything  as  I  now  do,  currents 
calamo  (having  written  all  these  memoirs,  so  far,  within  a 
month — more  or  less,  and  certainly  very  little  more).  From 
this  came  his  book. 

When  he  wrote  the  article  describing  his  imprisonment, 
there  was  in  it  a  sentence,  "  Jailor,  I  shall  die  unless  you 
bring  me  something  to  eat!"  In  the  proof  we  found,  "I 
shall  die  unless  you  bring  me  something  to  talk."  He  was 
just  going  to  correct  this,  when  I  cried,  "  For  Heaven's  sake, 
Browne,  let  that  stand  !  It's  best  as  it  is."  He  did  so,  and 
so  the  reader  may  find  it  in  his  work. 

Meanwhile  the  awful  storm  of  war  had  gathered  and  was 
about  to  burst.  I  may  here  say  that  there  was  a  kind  of  lit 
erary  club  or  association  of  ladies  and  gentlemen  who  met 
once  a  week  of  evenings  in  the  Studio  Buildings,  where  I  had 
many  friends,  such  as  Van  Brunt,  C.  Gambrell,  Hazeltine, 
Bierstadt,  Gifford,  Church,  and  Mignot.  At  this  club  I  con 
stantly  met  General  Birney,  the  great  Abolitionist,  whose 
famous  charge  at  Gettysburg  did  so  much  to  decide  the  bat 
tle.  Constant  intercourse  with  him  and  with  C.  A.  Dana 
greatly  inspired  me  in  my  anti-slavery  views.  The  manager 
of  Vanity  Fair  was  very  much  averse  to  absolutely  commit 
ting  the  journal  to  Republicanism,  and  I  was  determined  on 
it.  I  had  a  delicate  and  very  difficult  path  to  pursue,  and  I 
succeeded,  as  the  publication  bears  witness.  I  went  several 
times  to  Mr.  Dana,  and  availed  myself  of  his  shrewd  advice. 
Browne,  too,  agreed  pretty  fairly  with  me.  I  voted  for  Abra 
ham  Lincoln  at  the  first  election  in  New  York.  I  voted  on 
principle,  for  I  confess  that  every  conceivable  thing  had  been 
said  and  done  to  represent  him  as  an  ignorant,  ungainly, 
silly  Western  Hoosier,  and  even  the  Republican  press  had 


THE  RETURN  TO  AMERICA.  237 

little  or  nothing  to  say  as  to  his  good  qualities.  Horace 
Greeley  had  "  sprung  him  "  on  the  Convention  at  the  eleventh 
hour  and  fifty-ninth  minute  as  the  only  available  man,  and 
he  had  been  chosen  as  our  candidate  to  defeat  Douglas. 

Let  me  here  relate  two  anecdotes.  When  my  brother 
heard  of  Lincoln's  "  candidacy  "  he  said — 

"  I  don't  see  why  the  people  shouldn't  be  allowed  to  have 
a  President  for  once." 

A  Copperhead  friend  of  mine,  who  was  always  aiming  at 
"  gentility,"  remarked  to  me  with  an  air  of  disgust  on  the 
same  subject — 

"  I  do  wisht  we  could  have  a  gentleman  for  President  for 
oncet" 

The  said  Copperhead  became  in  due  time  a  Eepublican 
office-holder,  and  is  one  yet. 

Lincoln  was  elected.  Then  came  the  storm.  Our  rejoic 
ings  were  short.  Sumter  was  fired  on.  Up  to  that  time 
everybody,  including  President  Lincoln,  had  quite  resolved 
that,  if  the  South  was  resolved  to  secede,  it  must  be  allowed 
to  depart  in  peace.  There  had  been  for  many  years  a  con 
viction  that  our  country  was  growing  to  be  too  large  to  hold 
together.  I  always  despised  the  contemptible  idea.  I  had 
been  in  correspondence  with  the  Russian  Iskander  or  Alex 
ander  Herzen,  who  was  a  century  in  advance  of  his  time. 
He  was  the  real  abolisher  of  serfdom  in  Russia,  as  history 
will  yet  prove.  I  once  wrote  a  very  long  article  urging  the  Rus 
sian  Government  to  throw  open  the  Ural  gold  mines  to  for 
eigners,  and  make  every  effort  to  annex  Chinese  territory  and 
open  a  port  on  the  Pacific.  Herzen  translated  it  into  Russian 
(I  have  a  copy  of  it),  and  circulated  twenty  thousand  copies 
of  it  in  Russia.  The  Czar  read  it.  Herzen  wrote  to  me : 
"  It  will  be  pigeon-holed  for  forty  years,  and  then  perhaps 
acted  on.  The  Pacific  will  be  the  Mediterranean  of  the  fu 
ture."  With  such  ideas  I  did  not  believe  in  the  dismember 
ment  of  the  United  States.* 

*  Herzen  once  sent  me  a  complete  collection  of  all  his  books. 


238  MEMOIRS. 

But  Sumter  was  fired  on,  and  the  whole  North  rose  in 
fury.  It  was  the  silliest  act  ever  committed.  The  South, 
with  one-third  of  the  votes,  had  two-thirds  of  all  the  civil, 
military,  and  naval  appointments,  and  every  other  new 
State,  and  withal  half  of  the  North,  ready  to  lick  its  boots, 
and  still  was  not  satisfied.  It  could  not  go  without  giving 
us  a  thrashing.  And  that  was  the  drop  too  much.  So 
we  fought.  And  we  conquered;  but  how 9  It  was  all 
expressed  in  a  few  words,  which  I  heard  uttered  by  a  com 
mon  man  at  a  Bulletin  board,  on  the  dreadful  day  when  we 
first  read  the  news  of  the  retreat  at  Bull  Run  :  "  It's  hard — 
but  we  must  buckle  up  and  go  at  it  again."  It  is  very  strange 
that  the  South  never  understood  that  among  the  mud-sills 
and  toiling  slaves  and  factory  serfs  of  the  North  the  spirit 
which  had  made  men  enrich  barren  New  England  and  colo 
nise  the  Western  wilderness  would  make  them  buckle  up  and 
go  at  it  again  boldly  to  the  bitter  end. 

One  evening  I  met  C.  A.  Dana  on  Broadway.  War  had 
fairly  begun.  "  It  will  last,"  he  said,  "  not  less  than  four 
years,  but  it  may  extend  to  seven." 

Trouble  now  came  thick  and  fast.  Vanity  Fair  was 
brought  to  an  end.  Frank  Leslie  found  that  he  no  longer 
required  my  services,  and  paid  my  due,  which  was  far  in 
arrears,  in  his  usual  manner,  that  is,  by  orders  on  advertisers 
for  goods  which  I  did  not  want,  and  for  which  I  was  charged 
double  prices.  Alexander  Cummings  had  a  very  ingenious 
method  of  "  shaving  "  when  obliged  to  pay  his  debts.  His 
friend  Simon  Cameron  had  a  bank— the  Middleton— which, 
if  not  a  very  wild  cat,  was  far  from  tame,  as  its  notes  were 
always  five  or  ten  per  cent,  below  par,  to  our  loss — for  we  were 
always  paid  in  Middleton.  I  have  often  known  the  clerk  to 
take  a  handful  of  notes  at  par  and  send  out  to  buy  Middle- 
ton  wherewith  to  pay  me.  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  such  tricks 
were  universal  among  the  very  great  majority  of  proprietors 
with  whom  I  had  dealings.  To  "  do  "  the  employes  to  the 
utmost  was  considered  a  matter  of  course,  especially  when 


THE  RETURN   TO  AMERICA.  239 

the  one  employed  was  a  "  literary  fellow  "  of  any  kind  or  an 
artist. 

I  should  mention  that  while  in  New  York  I  saw  a  great 
deal  of  Bayard  Taylor  and  his  wife.  I  had  known  him  since 
1850,  and  was  intimate  with  him  till  his  death.  He  oc 
cupied  the  same  house  with  the  distinguished  poet  E.  H. 
Stoddard.  I  experienced  from  both  much  kindness.  We 
had  amusing  Saturday  evenings  there,  where  droll  plays 
were  improvised,  and  admirable  disguises  made  out  of  any 
thing.  In  after  years,  in  London,  Walter  H.  Pollock,  Minto 
(recently  deceased),  and  myself,  did  the  same.  One  night, 
in  the  latter  circle,  we  played  Hamlet,  but  the  chief  char 
acter  was  the  Sentinel,  who  stared  at  the  Ghost  with  such 
open-jawed  horror — "  bouche  beante,  rechignez  I " — and  so 
prominently,  that  poor  Hamlet  was  under  a  cloud.  Pollock's 
great  capuchon  overcoat  served  for  all  kinds  of  mysterious 
characters.  We  Avere  also  kindly  entertained  many  a  time 
and  oft  in  New  York  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Charles  A.  Dana. 

My  engagement  expired  on  the  Times — where,  by  the 
way,  I  was  paid  in  full  in  good  money — and  I  found  myself 
without  employment  in  a  fearful  financial  panic.  During 
the  spring  and  early  summer  we  had  lived  at  the  Gramercy 
Park  Hotel ;  we  now  went  to  a  very  pleasant  boarding-house 
kept  by  Mrs.  Dunn,  on  Staten  Island.  My  old  friend, 
George  Ward,  and  G.  W.  Curtis,  well  known  in  literature 
and  politics  (who  had  been  at  Mr.  Greene's  school),  lived  at 
no  great  distance  from  us.  The  steamboats  from  New  York 
to  Staten  Island  got  to  racing,  and  I  enjoyed  it  very  much, 
but  George  Ward  and  some  of  the  milder  sort  protested 
against  it,  and  it  was  stopped ;  which  I  thought  rather  hard, 
for  we  had  very  little  amusement  in  those  dismal  days.  I 
was  once  in  a  steamboat  race  when  our  boat  knocked  away 
the  paddle-box  from  the  other  and  smashed  the  wheel. 
From  the  days  of  the  Romans  and  Norsemen  down  to  the 
present  time,  there  was  never  any  form  of  amusement  dis 
covered  so  daring,  so  dangerous,  and  so  exciting  as  a  steam- 


240  MEMOIRS. 

boat  race,  and  nobody  but  Americans  could  have  ever  in 
vented  or  indulged  in  it. 

The  old  Knickerbocker  Magazine  had  been  for  a  long 
time  running  down  to  absolutely  nothing.  A  Mr.  Gilmore 
purchased  it,  and  endeavoured  to  galvanise  it  into  life.  Its 
sober  grey-blue  cover  was  changed  to  orange.  Mr.  Clark  left 
it,  to  my  sorrow ;  but  there  was  no  help  for  it,  for  there  was 
not  a  penny  to  pay  him.  I  consented  to  edit  it  for  half 
ownership,  for  I  had  an  idea.  This  was,  to  make  it  promptly 
a  strong  Eepublican  monthly  for  the  time,  which  was  utterly 
opposed  to  all  of  Mr.  Clark's  ideas. 

I  must  here  remark  that  the  financial  depression  in  the 
North  at  this  time  was  terrible.  I  knew  many  instances  in 
which  landlords  begged  it  as  a  favour  from  tenants  that  they 
would  remain  rent-free  in  their  houses.  A  friend  of  mine, 
Mr.  Fales,  one  day  took  me  over  two  houses  in  Fifth 
Avenue,  of  which  he  had  been  offered  his  choice  for  $15,000 
each.  Six  months  after  the  house  sold  for  $150,000.  Fac 
tories  and  shops  were  everywhere  closing,  and  there  was  a 
general  feeling  that  far  deeper  and  more  terrible  disasters 
were  coming — war  in  its  worst  forms — national  disintegra 
tion — utter  ruin.  This  spirit  of  despair  was  now  debilitating 
everybody.  The  Copperheads  or  Democrats,  who  were  with 
in  a  fraction  as  numerous  as  the  Republicans,  continually 
hissed,  "  You  see  to  what  your  nigger  worship  has  brought 
the  country.  This  is  all  your  doing.  And  the  worst  is  to 
come."  Then  there  was  soon  developed  a  class  known  as 
Croakers,  who  increased  to  the  end  of  the  war.  These  were 
good  enough  Union  people,  but  without  any  hope  of  any  happy 
issue  in  anything,  and  who  were  quite  sure  that  everything 
was  for  the  worst  in  this  our  most  unfortunate  of  all  wretched 
countries.  Now  it  is  a  law  of  humanity  that  in  all  great 
crises,  or  whenever  energy  and'  manliness  is  needed,  pes 
simism  is  a  benumbing  poison,  and  the  strongest  optimism 
the  very  elixir  vita  itself.  And  by  a  marvellously  strange 
inspiration  (though  it  was  founded  on  cool,  far-sighted  calcu- 


THE  RETURN  TO  AMERICA.  241 

lation),  I,  at  this  most  critical  and  depressing  time,  rose  to 
extremest  hope  and  confidence,  rejoicing  that  the  great  crisis 
had  at  length  come,  and  feeling  to  my  very  depths  of  convic 
tion  that,  as  we  were  sublimely  in  the  right,  we  must  conquer, 
and  that  the  dread  portal  once  passed  we  should  find  our 
selves  in  the  fairy  palace  of  prosperity  and  freedom.  But 
that  I  was  absolutely  for  a  time  alone  amid  all  men  round 
me,  in  this  intense  hope  and  confidence,  may  be  read  as 
clearly  as  can  be  in  what  I  and  others  published  in  those 
days,  for  all  of  this  was  recorded  in  type. 

Bayard  Taylor  had  been  down  to  the  front,  and  remarked 
carelessly  to  me  one  day  that  when  he  found  that  there  was 
already  a  discount  of  40  per  cent,  on  Confederate  notes,  he 
was  sure  that  the  South  would  yield  in  the  end.  This  made 
me  think  very  deeply.  There  was  no  reason,  if  we  could 
keep  the  Copperheads  subdued,  why  we  should  not  hold  our 
own  on  our  own  territory.  Secondly,  as  the  war  went  on  we 
should  soon  win  converts.  Thirdly,  that  the  Xorth  had  im 
mense  resources — its  hay  crop  alone  was  worth  more  than  all 
the  cotton  crop  of  the  South.  And  fourthly,  that  when 
manufacturing  and  contract-making  for  the  army  should  once 
begin,  there  would  be  such  a  spreading  or  wasting  of  money 
and  making  fortunes  as  the  world  never  witnessed,  and  that 
while  we  grew  rich,  the  South,  without  commerce  or  manu 
factures,  must  grow  poor. 

I  felt  as  if  inspired,  and  I  wrote  an  article  entitled,  "  Woe 
to  the  South."  At  this  time,  "  Woe  to  the  North  "  was  the 
fear  in  every  heart.  I  showed  clearly  that  if  we  would  only 
keep  up  our  hearts,  that  the  utter  ruin  of  the  South  was  in 
evitable,  while  that  for  us  there  was  close  at  hand  such  a 
period  of  prosperity  as  no  one  ever  dreamt  of — that  every 
factory  would  soon  double  its  buildings,  and  prices  rise  be 
yond  all  precedent.  I  followed  this  article  by  others,  all  in 
a  wild,  enthusiastic  style  of  triumph.  People  thought  I  was 
mad,  and  the  New  York  Times  compared  my  utterances  to  the 
outpourings  of  a  fanatical  Puritan  in  the  time  of  Cromwell. 


242  MEMOIRS. 

But  they  were  fulfilled  to  the  letter.  There  is  no  in 
stance  that  I  know  of  in  which  any  man  ever  prophesied  so 
directly  in  the  face  of  public  opinion  and  had  his  predictions 
so  accurately  fulfilled.  I  was  all  alone  in  my  opinions.  At 
all  times  a  feeling  as  of  awe  at  myself  comes  over  me  when  I 
think  of  what  I  published.  For,  with  the  exception  of  Gil- 
more,  who  had  a  kind  of  vague  idea  that  he  kept  a  prophet 
— as  Moses  the  tailor  kept  a  poet — not  a  soul  of  my  acquaint 
ance  believed  in  all  this. 

Then  I  went  a  step  further.  I  found  that  the  real  block  in 
the  way  of  Northern  union  was  the  disgust  which  had  gathered 
round  the  mere  name  of  Abolitionist.  It  became  very  appar 
ent  that  freeing  the  slaves  would,  as  General  Birney  once  said 
to  me,  be  knocking  out  the  bottom  of  the  basket.  And  people 
wanted  to  abolitionise  without  being  "  Abolitionists  " ;  and  at 
this  time  even  the  New  York  Tribune  became  afraid  to  advo 
cate  anti-slavery,and  the  greatest  fanatics  were  dumb  with  fear. 

Then  I  made  a  new  departure.  I  advocated  emancipa 
tion  of  the  slaves  as  a  war  measure  only,  and  my  cry  was 
"  Emancipation  for  the  sake  of  the  White  Man."  I  urged 
prompt  and  vigorous  action  without  any  regard  to  philan 
thropy.  As  publishing  such  views  in  the  Knickerbocker  was 
like  pouring  the  wildest  of  new  wine  into  the  weakest  of  old 
bottles,  Gilmore  resolved  to  establish  at  once  in  Boston  a 
political  monthly  magazine  to  be  called  the  Continental,  to 
be  devoted  to  this  view  of  the  situation.  It  was  the  only 
political  magazine  devoted  to  the  Republican  cause  published 
during  the  war.  That  it  fully  succeeded  in  rapidly  attract 
ing  to  the  Union  party  a  vast  number  of  those  who  had  held 
aloof  owing  to  their  antipathy  to  the  mere  word  abolition,  is 
positively  true,  and  still  remembered  by  many.*  Very  speed- 

*  Abraham  Lincoln  once  remarked  of  the  people  who  wanted  eman 
cipation,  but  who  did  not  like  to  be  called  Abolitionists,  that  they  re 
minded  him  of  the  Irishman  who  had  signed  a  temperance  pledge  and 
did  not  like  to  break  i(,  yet  who  sadly  wanted  a  "  drink."  So  going  to 
an  apothecary  he  asked  for  a  glass  of  soda-water,  adding,  "  an',  docther 


THE  RETURN  TO  AMERICA.  243 

ily  indeed  people  at  large  caught  at  the  idea.  I  remember 
the  very  first  time  when  one  evening  I  heard  Governor 
Andrews  say  of  a  certain  politician  that  he  was  not  an 
Abolitionist  but  an  Emancipationist;  and  it  was  subsequently 
declared  by  my  friends  in  Boston,  and  that  often,  that  the 
very  bold  course  taken  by  the  Continental  Magazine,  and  the 
creation  by  it  of  the  Emancipationist  wing,  had  hastened  by 
several  months  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves  by  Abraham 
Lincoln.  It  was  for  this  alone  that  the  University  of  Cam 
bridge,  Massachusetts,  afterwards,  through  its  president,  gave 
me  the  degree  of  A.  M.,  "  for  literary  services  rendered  to 
the  country  during  the  war,"  which  is  as  complete  a  proof  of 
what  I  assert  as  could  be  imagined,  for  this  was  in  very  truth 
the  one  sole  literary  service  which  I  performed  at  that  time, 
and  there  were  many  of  my  great  literary  friends  who  de 
clared  their  belief  in,  and  sympathy  with,  the  services  which 
I  rendered  to  the  cause.  But  I  will  now  cite  some  facts 
which  fully  and  further  confirm  what  I  have  said. 

The  Continental  Magazine  was,  as  I  may  say,  a  something 
more  than  semi-official  organ.  Mr.  Seward  contributed  to  it 
two  anonymous  articles,  or  rather  their  substance,  which  were 
written  out  and  forwarded  to  me  by  Oakey  Hall,  Esq.,  of 
New  York.  We  received  from  the  Cabinet  at  Washington 
continual  suggestions,  for  it  was  well  understood  that  the 
Continental  was  read  by  all  influential  Republicans.  A  con 
tributor  had  sent  us  a  very  important  article  indeed,  pointing 
out  that  there  was  all  through  the  South,  from  the  Mississip 
pi  to  the  sea,  a  line  of  mountainous  country  in  which  there 
were  few  or  no  slaves,  and  very  little  attachment  to  the  Con 
federacy.  This  article,  which  was  extensively  republished, 
attracted  great  attention.  It  gave  great  strength  and  en 
dear,  if  yees  could  put  a  little  whisky  into  it  unbeknownst  to  me,  I'd  be 
much  obliged  to  yees."  I  believe  that  I  may  say  that  as  Mr.  Lincoln 
read  all  which  I  published  (as  I  was  well  assured),  I  was  the  apothecary 
here  referred  to,  who  administered  the  whisky  of  Abolition  disguised 
in  the  soda-water  of  Emancipation. 


214  MEMOIRS. 

couragement  to  the  grand  plan  of  the  campaign,  afterwards 
realised  by  Sherman.  By  official  request,  to  me  directed,  the 
author  contributed  a  second  article  on  the  subject.  These 
articles  were  extensively  circulated  in  pamphlet  form  or 
widely  copied  by  the  press,  and  created  a  great  sensation, 
forming,  in  fact,  one  of  the  great  points  made  in  influencing 
public  opinion.  Another  of  the  same  kind,  but  not  ours, 
was  the  famous  pamphlet  by  Charles  Stille,  of  Philadelphia, 
"  How  a  Free  People  Conduct  a  Long  War,"  in  which  it  was 
demonstrated  that  the  man  who  can  hold  out  longest  in  a 
fight  has  the  best  chance,  which  simple  truth  made,  however, 
an  incredible  popular  impression.  Gilmore  and  our  friends 
succeeded,  in  fact,  in  making  the  Continental  Magazine 
"  respected  at  court."  But  I  kept  my  independence  and 
principles,  and  thundered  away  so  fiercely  for  immediate 
emancipation  that  I  was  confidentially  informed  that  Mr. 
Seward  once  exclaimed  in  a  rage,  "  Damn  Leland  and  his 
magazine ! "  But  as  he  damned  me  only  officially  and  in 
confidence,  I  took  it  in  the  Pickwickian  sense.  And  at  this 
time  I  realised  that,  though  I  was  not  personally  very  much 
before  the  public,  I  was  doing  great  and  good  work,  and,  as 
I  have  said,  a  great  many  very  distinguished  persons  ex 
pressed  to  me  by  letter  or  in  conversation  their  appreciation 
of  it ;  and  some  on  the  other  side  wrote  letters  giving  it  to 
me  per  contra,  and  one  of  these  was  Caleb  Gushing.  Cu- 
shing  in  Chinese  means  "  ancient  glory,"  but  Caleb's  renown 
was  extinguished  in  those  days. 

I  may  add  that  not  only  did  H.  W.  Longfellow  express  to 
me  his  sympathy  for  and  admiration  of  my  efforts  to  aid  the 
Union  cause,  but  at  one  time  or  another  all  of  my  literary 
friends  in  Boston,  who  perfectly  understood  and  showed  deep 
interest  in  what  I  was  doing.  Which  can  be  well  believed  of 
a  city  in  which,  above  all  others  in  the  world,  everybody 
sincerely  aims  at  culture  and  knowledge,  the  first  principle 
of  which — inspired  by  praiseworthy  local  patriotism — is  to 
know  and  take  pride  in  what  is  done  in  Boston  by  its  natives. 


V. 

LIFE   DURING    THE    CIVIL    WAR    AND 

ITS    SEQ  UENCE. 

1862-186G. 

Boston  in  1862 — Kind  friends — Literary  circles — Emerson,  0.  W. 
Holmes,  Lowell,  E.  P.  Whipple,  Agassiz,  &c. — The  Saturday  dinners 
— The  printed  autograph— The  days  of  the  Dark  Shadow — Lowell 
and  Hosea  Biglow — I  am  assured  that  the  Continental  Magazine 
advanced  the  period  of  Emancipation — I  return  to  Philadelphia — 
My  pamphlet  on  "  Centralisation  versus  States  Rights  " — Its  Results 
— Books — Ping-Wing — The  Emergency — I  enter  an  artillery  com 
pany —  Adventures  and  comrades  —  R.  W.  Gilder  —  I  see  rebel 
scouts  near  Ilarrisburg — The  shelling  of  Carlisle — Incidents — My 
brother  receives  his  death-wound  at  my  side — Theodore  Fassitt — 
Stewart  Patterson — Exposure  and  hunger — The  famous  bringing- 
up  of  the  cannon — Picturesque  scenery — The  battle  of  Gettysburg 
— The  retreat  of  Lee — Incidents — Return  home — Cape  May — The 
beautiful  Miss  Vining — Solomon  the  Sadducee — General  Carrol 
Tevis — The  Sanitary  Fair — The  oil  mania — The  oil  country — Colo 
nel  H.  Olcott,  the  theosophist — Adventures  and  odd  incidents  in 
Oil-land — Nashville — Dangers  of  the  road — A  friend  in  need — I  act 
as  unofficial  secretary  and  legal  adviser  to  General  Whipple — Freed 
slaves — Inter  anna,  silent  leges — Horace  Harrison — Voodoo — Cap 
tain  Joseph  R.  Paxton — Scouting  for  oil  and  shooting  a  brigand — 
Indiana  in  winter — Charleston,  West  Virginia — Back  and  forth 
from  Providence  to  the  debated  land — The  murder  of  A.  Lincoln — 
Goshorn — Up  Elk  River  in  a  dug-out — A  charmed  life— Sam  Fox 
— A  close  shot — Meteorological  sorcery — A  wild  country — Marvel 
lous  scenery — I  bore  a  well — Robert  Hunt — Horse  adventures — The 
panther — I  am  suspected  of  being  a  rebel  spy — The  German  apology 
— Cincinnati — Niagara — A  summer  at  Lenox,  Mass. — A  MS.  burnt. 

WE  went  to  Boston  early  in  December,  1861,  and  during 
that  winter  lived  pleasantly  at  the  Winthrop  House  on  the 


246  MEMOIRS. 

Common.  I  had  already  many  friends,  and  took  letters  to 
others  who  became  our  friends.  We  were  very  kindly  re 
ceived.  Among  those  whom  we  knew  best  were  Mrs.  and 
Mr.  II.  Ritchie,  Mrs.  and  Mr.  T.  Perkins,  Mrs.  II.  G.  Otis, 
Mrs.  Julia  Ward  Howe,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Samuel  Ward — but  I 
must  really  stop,  for  there  was  no  end  to  the  list.  Among 
my  literary  friends  or  acquaintances,  or  "  people  whom  I 
have  very  often  met,"  were  Emerson,  Longfellow,  Dr.  0.  W. 
Holmes,  J.  R.  Lowell,  E.  P.  Whipple,  Palfrey,  G.  Ticknor, 
Agassiz,  E.  Everett — in  a  word,  all  that  brilliant  circle  which 
shone  when  Boston  was  at  its  brightest  in  1SG2.  I  was  often 
invited  to  the  celebrated  Saturday  dinners,  where  I  more 
than  once  sat  by  Emerson  and  Holmes.  As  I  had  been 
editor  of  the  free  lance  Vanity  Fair,  and  was  now  conduct 
ing  the  Continental  with  no  small  degree  of  audacity,  regard 
less  of  friend  or  foe,  it  was  expected — and  no  wonder — that 
I  would  be  beautifully  cheeky  and  New  Yorky ;  and  truly 
my  education  and  antecedents  in  America,  beginning  with 
my  training  under  Barnum,  were  not  such  as  to  inspire  faith 
in  my  modesty.  But  in  the  society  of  the  Saturday  Club, 
and  in  the  very  general  respect  manifested  in  all  circles  iu 
Boston  for  culture  or  knowledge  in  every  form — in  which 
respect  it  is  certainly  equalled  by  no  city  on  earth — I  often 
forgot  newspapers  and  politics  and  war,  and  lived  again  in 
memory  at  Heidelberg  and  Munich,  recalling  literature  and 
art.  I  heard,  a  day  or  two  after  my  first  Saturday,  that  I 
had  passed  the  grand  ordeal  successfully,  or  summa  cum 
magna  laude,  and  that  Dr.  Holmes,  in  enumerating  divers 
good  qualities,  had  remarked  that  I  was  modest.  Every 
stranger  coming  to  Boston  has  a  verdict  or  judgment  passed 
on  him — he  is  numbered  and  labelled  at  once — and  it  is 
really  wonderful  how  in  a  few  days  the  whole  town  knows  it. 
I  had  met  with  Emerson  many  years  before  in  Philadel 
phia,  where  I  had  attracted  his  attention  by  remarking  in 
Mrs.  James  Rush's  drawing-room  that  a  vase  in  a  room  was 
like  a  bridge  in  a  landscape,  which  he  recalled  twenty  years 


LIFE  DURING  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  247 

later.    With  Dr.  Holmes  I  had  corresponded.    Lowell !  "  that 
reminds  me  of  a  little  story." 

There  was  some  "genius  of  freedom" — i.  e.,  one  who  takes 
liberties — who  collected  autographs,  and  had  not  even  the 
politeness  to  send  a  written  request.  He  forwarded  to  me 
this  printed  circular : 

"  DEAR  SIR  :  As  I  am  collecting  the  autographs  of  dis 
tinguished  Americans,  I  would  be  much  obliged  to  you  for 
your  signature.     Yours  truly,  •" 

While  I  was  editing  Vanity  Fair  I  received  one  of  these 
circulars.  I  at  once  wrote : — 

"DEAR  SIR  :  It  gives  me  great  pleasure  to  comply  with 
your  request,  CHARLES  G.  LELAND." 

I  called  the  foreman,  and  said,  "  Mr.  Chapin,  please  to  set 
this  up  and  pull  half-a-dozen  proofs."  It  was  done,  and  I 
sent  one  to  the  autograph-chaser.  He  was  angry,  and  an 
swered  impertinently.  Others  I  sent  to  Holmes  and  Lowell. 
The  latter  thought  that  the  applicant  was  a  great  fool  not  to 
understand  that  such  a  printed  document  was  far  more  of  a 
curiosity  than  a  mere  signature.  I  met  with  Chapin  after 
wards,  when  in  the  war.  He  had  with  him  a  small  company 
of  printers,  all  of  whom  had  set  up  my  copy  many  a  time. 
Printers  are  always  polite  men.  They  all  called  on  me,  and 
having  no  cards,  left  cigars,  which  were  quite  as  acceptable 
at  that  time  of  tobacco-famine. 

Amid  all  the  horrors  and  anxieties  of  that  dreadful  year, 
while  my  old  school-mate,  General  George  B.  McClellan,  was 
delaying  and  demanding  more  men — mas  y  mas  y  mas — I 
still  had  as  many  happy  hours  as  had  ever  come  into  any  year 
of  my  life.  If  I  made  no  money,  and  had  to  wear  my  old 
gloves  (I  had  fortunately  a  good  stock  gathered  from  one  of 
Frank  Leslie's  debtors),  and  had  to  sail  rather  close  to  the 
wind,  I  still  found  the  sailing  very  pleasant,  and  the  wind 
fair  and  cool,  though  I  was  pauper  in  cure. 

Mrs.  Harrison  Gray  Otis  held  a  ladies'  sewing-circle  to 
make  garments  for  the  soldiers,  at  which  my  wife  worked  zeal- 


248  MEMOIRS. 

ously.  There  were  many  social  receptions,  readings,  etc.,  where 
we  met  everybody.  It  was  very  properly  considered  bad  form 
in  those  early  days  of  the  war  to  dance  or  give  grand  dinners 
or  great  "  parties."  It  was,  in  fact,  hardly  decent  for  a  man 
to  dress  up  and  appear  as  a  swell  at  all  anywhere.  Death  was 
beginning  to  strike  fast  into  families  through  siege  and  battle, 
and  crape  to  blacken  the  door-bells.  There  was  a  dark  shad 
ow  over  every  life.  I  had  been  assured  by  an  officer  that  my 
magazine  was  doing  the  work  of  two  regiments,  yet  I  was  tor 
mented  with  the  feeling  that  I  ought  to  be  in  the  war,  as  my 
grandfather  would  surely  have  been  at  my  age.  The  officer 
alluded  to  wrote  to  me  that  he  on  one  occasion  had  read  one 
of  my  articles  by  camp-fire  to  his  regiment,  who  gave  at  the 
end  three  tremendous  cheers,  which  were  replied  to  by  the 
enemy,  who  were  not  far  away,  with  shouts  of  defiance.  As 
for  minor  incidents  of  the  war-time,  I  could  fill  a  book  with 
them.  One  day  a  young  gentleman,  a  perfect  stranger,  came 
to  my  office,  as  many  did,  and  asked  for  advice.  He  said, 
"  Where  I  live  in  the  country  we  have  raised  a  regiment,  and 
they  want  me  to  be  colonel,  but  I  have  no  knowledge  what 
ever  of  military  matters.  What  shall  I  do  ?  "  I  looked  at 
him,  and  saw  that  he  "  had  it  in  him,"  and  replied,  "  New 
York  is  full  of  Hungarian  and  German  military  adventurers 
seeking  employment.  Get  one,  and  let  him  teach  you  and 
the  men ;  but  take  good  care  that  he  does  not  supplant  you. 
Let  that  be  understood."  After  some  months  he  returned  in 
full  uniform  to  thank  me.  He  had  got  his  man,  had  fought 
in  the  field — all  had  gone  well. 

I  remember,  as  an  incident  worth  noting,  that  one  even 
ing  while  visiting  Jas.  R.  Lowell  at  his  house  in  Cambridge, 
awaiting  supper,  there  came  a  great  bundle  of  proofs.  They 
were  the  second  series  of  the  Biglow  Papers  adapted  to  the 
new  struggle,  and  as  I  was  considered  in  Boston  at  that  time 
as  being  in  my  degree  a  literary  political  authority  or  one  of 
some  general  experience,  he  was  anxious  to  have  my  opinion 
of  them,  and  had  invited  me  for  that  purpose.  He  read  them 


LIFE  DURING  THE  CIVIL  WAR,  249 

to  me,  manifested  great  interest  as  to  my  opinion,  and  seemed 
to  be  very  much  delighted  or  relieved  when  I  praised  them 
and  predicted  a  success.  I  do  not  exaggerate  in  this  in  the 
least ;  his  expression  was  plainly  and  unmistakably  that  of  a 
man  from  whom  some  doubt  had  been  banished. 

My  brother  Henry  had  at  once  entered  a  training-school 
for  officers  in  Philadelphia,  distinguished  himself  as  a  pupil, 
and  gone  out  to  the  war  in  1862.  The  terrible  ill-luck  which 
attended  his  every  effort  in  life  overtook  him  speedily,  and, 
owing  to  his  extreme  zeal  and  over-work,  he  had  a  sunstroke, 
which  obliged  him  to  return  home.  He  was  a  first-lieuten 
ant.  The  next  year  he  went  as  sergeant,  and  was  again  in 
valided.  What  further  befell  him  will  appear  in  the  course 
of  my  narrative. 

The  Continental  Magazine  had  done  its  work  and  was 
evidently  dying.  I  had  never  received  a  cent  from  it,  and  it 
had  just  met  the  expenses  of  publication.  It  had  done  much 
good  and  rendered  great  service  to  the  Union  cause.  Gil- 
more  had  very  foolishly  yielded  half  the  ownership  to  Robert 
J.  Walker,  of  whom  I  confess  I  have  no  very  agreeable  recol 
lections.  So  it  began  to  die.  But  I  have  the  best  authority 
for  declaring  that,  ere  it  died,  it  had  advanced  the  time  of  the 
Declaration  of  Emancipation,  which  was  the  turning-point  of 
the  whole  struggle,  and  all  my  friends  in  Boston  were  of  that 
opinion.  This  I  can  fully  prove. 

The  summer  of  1862  I  passed  in  Dedham,  going  every 
day  to  my  office  in  Boston.  We  lived  at  the  Phoenix  Hotel, 
and  occupied  the  same  rooms  which  my  father  and  mother 
had  inhabited  thirty-five  years  before.  We  had  many  very 
kind  and  hospitable  friends.  I  often  found  time  to  roam 
about  the  country,  to  sit  by  Wigwam  Lake,  to  fish  in  the 
river  Charles,  and  explore  the  wild  woods.  I  have  innumer 
able  pleasant  recollections  of  that  summer. 

I  returned  in  the  autumn  with  my  wife  to  Philadelphia, 
and  to  my  father's  house  in  Locust  Street.  The  first  thing 
which  I  did  was  to  write  a  pamphlet  on  "  Centralisation 


250  MEMOIRS. 

versus  States  Rights."  In  it  I  set  forth  clearly  enough  the 
doctrine  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  could  not 
be  interpreted  so  as  to  sanction  secession,  and  that  as  the 
extremities  or  limbs  grew  in  power,  so  there  should  be  a 
strengthening  of  the  brain  or  greater  power  bestowed  on  the 
central  Government.  I  also  advocated  the  idea  of  a  far  greater 
protection  of  general  and  common  industries  and  interests 
being  adopted  by  the  Government. 

There  was  in  the  Senate  a  truly  great  man,  of  German 
extraction,  named  Gottlieb  Orth,  from  Indiana.  He  was 
absolutely  the  founder  of  the  Bureaus  of  Education,  &c., 
which  are  now  flourishing  in  Washington.  He  wrote  to  me 
saying  that  he  had  got  the  idea  of  Industrial  bureaus  from 
my  pamphlet.  In  this  pamphlet  I  had  opposed  the  com 
monly  expressed  opinion  that  we  must  do  nothing  to  "  aggra 
vate  the  South."  That  is,  we  should  burn  the  powder  up  by 
degrees,  as  the  old  lady  did  who  was  blown  to  pieces  by  the 
experiment.  "  Do  not  drive  them  to  extremes."  I  declared 
that  the  South  would  go  to  extremes  in  any  case,  and  that  we 
had  better  anticipate  it.  This  brought  forth  strange  fruit  in 
after  years,  long  after  the  war. 

While  I  was  in  Boston  in  1862,  I  published  by  Putnam  in 
New  York  a  book  entitled  "  Sunshine  in  Thought,"  which 
had,  however,  been  written  long  before.  It  was  all  directed 
against  the  namby-pamby  pessimism,  "  lost  Edens  and  buried 
Lenores,"  and  similar  weak  rubbish,  which  had  then  begun 
to  manifest  itself  in  literature,  and  which  I  foresaw  was  in 
future  to  become  a  great  curse,  as  it  has  indeed  done.  Only 
five  hundred  copies  of  it  were  printed. 

I  was  very  busy  during  the  first  six  months  of  1863.  I 
wrote  a  work  entitled  "  The  Art  of  Conversation,  or  Hints 
for  Self-Education,"  which  was  at  once  accepted  and  pub 
lished  by  Carleton,  of  New  York.  It  had,  I  am  assured,  a 
very  large  sale  indeed.  I  also  wrote  and  illustrated,  with  the 
aid  of  my  brother,  a  very  eccentric  pamphlet,  "  The  Book  of 
Copperheads."  When  Abraham  Lincoln  died  two  books 


LIFE   DURING  THE  CIVIL   WAR.  251 

were  found  in  his  desk.  One  was  the  "  Letters  of  Petroleum 
V.  Nasby,"  by  Dr.  E.  Locke,  and  my  "  Book  of  Copper 
heads,"  which  latter  was  sent  to  me  to  see  and  return.  It 
was  much  thumbed,  showing  that  it  had  been  thoroughly 
read  by  Father  Abraham. 

I  also  translated  Heine's  "  Book  of  Songs."  Most  of  these 
had  already  been  published  in  the  "  Pictures  of  Travel."  I 
restored  them  to  their  original  metres.  I  also  translated  the 
"  Memoirs  of  a  Good-for-Nothing "  from  the  German,  and 
finished  up,  partially  illustrated,  and  published  two  juvenile 
works.  One  of  these  was  "  Mother  Pitcher,"  a  collection  of 
original  nursery  rhymes  for  children,  which  I  had  writen 
many  years  before  expressly  for  my  youngest  sister,  Emily, 
now  Mrs.  John  Harrison  of  Philadelphia.  In  this  work 
occurs  my  original  poem  of  "  Ping-Wing  the  Pieman's  Son." 
Of  this  Poem  Punch  said,  many  years  after,  that  it  was  "  the 
best  thing  of  the  kind  which  had  ever  crossed  the  Atlantic." 
Ping-Wing  appeared  in  1891  as  a  full-page  cartoon  by  Tenniel 
in  Pu?ich,  and  as  burning  up  the  Treaty.  I  may  venture  to 
say  that  Ping- Wing — once  improvised  to  amuse  dear  little 
Emily — has  become  almost  as  well  known  in  American  nurs 
eries  as  "  Little  Boy  Blue,"  at  any  rate  his  is  a  popular  type, 
and  when  Mrs.  Vanderbilt  gave  her  famous  masked  ball  in 
K"ew  York,  there  was  in  the  Children's  Quadrille  a  little  Ping- 
Wing.  Ping  travelled  far  and  wide,  for  in  after  years  I  put 
him  into  Pidgin-English,  and  gave  him  a  place  in  the  "Pidgin- 
English  Ballads,"  which  have  always  been  read  in  Canton,  I 
daresay  by  many  a  heathen  Chinese  learning  that  childlike 
tongue.  I  also  translated  the  German  "  Mother  Goose." 

And  now  terrible  times  came  on,  followed,  for  me,  by 
a  sad  event.  The  rebels,  led  by  General  Lee,  had  pene 
trated  into  Pennsylvania,  and  Philadelphia  was  threatened. 
This  period  was  called  the  "  Emergency."  I  could  easily  have 
got  a  command  as  officer.  I  had  already  obtained  for  my 
brother  an  appointment  as  major  with  secretary's  duty  on 
Fremont's  staff,  which  he  promptly  declined.  But  it  was  no 


252  MEMOIRS. 

time  to  stand  on  dignity,  and  I  was  rather  proud,  as  was  my 
brother,  to  go  as  "  full  private  "  in  an  artillery  company  known 
as  "  Chapman  Biddle's,"  though  he  did  not  take  command  of 
it  on  this  occasion.*  Our  captain  was  a  dealer  in  cutlery 
named  Landis. 

After  some  days'  delay  we  were  marched  forth.  Even 
during  those  few  days,  while  going  about  town  in  my  private's 
uniform,  I  realised  in  a  droll  new  way  what  it  was  to  be  a 
common  man.  Maid-servants  greeted  me  like  a  friend,  other 
soldiers  and  the  humbler  class  talked  familiarly  to  me.  I 
had,  however,  no  excuse  to  think  myself  any  better  than  my 
comrades,  for  among  the  hundred  were  nearly  twenty  lawyers 
or  law-students,  and  all  were  gentlemen  as  regards  position  in 
society.  Among  them  was  E.  W.  Gilder,  now  the  editor  of 
the  Century,  who  was  quite  a  youth  then,  and  in  whose 
appearance  there  was  something  which  deeply  interested  me. 
I  certainly  have  a  strange  Gypsy  faculty  for  divining  charac 
ter,  and  I  divined  a  genius  in  him.  He  was  very  brave  and 
uncomplaining  in  suffering,  but  also  very  sensitive  and  emo 
tional.  Once  it  happened,  at  a  time  when  we  were  all  nearly 
starved  to  death  and  worn  out  with  want  of  sleep  and  fa 
tigue,  that  I  by  some  chance  got  a  loaf  of  bread  and  some 
molasses.  I  cut  it  into  twelve  slices  and  sweetened  them, 
intending  to  give  one  to  every  man  of  our  gun.  But  I  could 
only  find  eleven,  and,  remembering  Gilder,  went  about  a  long 
mile  to  find  him ;  and  when  I  gave  it  to  him  he  was  so 
touched  that  the  tears  came  into  his  fine  dark  eyes.  Trivial 
as  the  incident  was,  it  moved  me.  Another  was  Theodore 
Fassitt,  a  next-door  neighbour  of  mine,  whose  mother  had 
specially  commended  him  to  me,  and  who  told  me  that  once 

*  Chapman  Biddle  himself  was  a  very  remarkable  man  as  a  lawyer, 
and  a  person  of  marked  refinement  and  culture.  He  became  my  friend 
in  after  years,  as  did  his  son  Walter.  Both  are  now  departed.  I  wrote 
and  publicly  read  an  "  In  Memoriam  "  address  and  poem  on  his  death, 
in  delivering  which  I  had  great  pains  to  refrain  from  weeping,  which  was 
startling  to  me,  not  being  habitually  expressive  of  emotion. 


LIFE  DURING  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  253 

or  twice  he  had  stolen  ears  of  maize  from  the  horses  to  keep 
himself  alive.  Also  Edward  Penington,  and  James  Biddle,  a 
gentleman  of  sixty;  but  I  really  cannot  give  the  roll-call. 
However,  they  all  showed  themselves  to  be  gallant  gentlemen 
aud  true  ere  they  returned  home.  The  first  night  we  slept 
in  a  railroad  station,  packed  like  sardines,  and  I  lay  directly 
across  a  rail.  Then  we  were  in  camp  near  Harrisburg  for  a 
week — dans  la  pluie  et  la  misere. 

We  knew  that  the  rebels  were  within  six  miles  of  us,  at 
Shooter's  Hill — in  fact,  two  of  our  guns  went  there.  Pening 
ton  was  with  them,  and  had  a  small  skirmish,  wherein  two  of 
the  f oemen  were  slain,  the  corporal  being,  however,  called  off 
before  he  could  secure  their  scalps.  That  afternoon,  as  I  was 
on  guard,  I  saw  far  down  below  a  few  men  who  appeared  to 
be  scouting  very  cautiously,  and  hiding  as  they  did  so.  They 
seemed  mere  specks,  but  I  was  sure  they  were  rebels.  I 
called  on  Lieutenant  Perkins,  who  had  a  glass,  but  neither 
he  nor  others  present  thought  they  were  of  the  enemy.  Long 
after,  this  incident  had  a  droll  sequel. 

Hearing  that  the  rebels  were  threatening  Carlisle,  we 
were  sent  thither  on  a  forced  march  of  sixteen  miles.  They 
had  been  before  us,  aud  partially  burned  the  barracks.  We 
rested  in  the  town.  There  was  a  large  open  space,  for  all  the 
world  like  a  stage.  Ladies  and  others  brought  us  refresh 
ments;  the  scene  became  theatrical  indeed.  The  soldiers, 
wearied  with  a  long  march,  were  resting  or  gossipping,  when 
all  at  once — whizz-bang — a  shell  came  flying  over  our  heads 
and  burst.  There  were  cries — the  ladies  fled  like  frightened 
wild- fowl !  The  operatic  effect  was  complete  ! 

About  ten  thousand  rebel  regulars,  hearing  that  we  had 
occiTpied  Carlisle,  had  returned,  and  if  they  had  known  that 
there  were  only  two  or  three  thousand  raw  recruits,  they 
might  have  captured  us  all.  From  this  fate  we  were  saved 
by  a  good  strong  tremendous  lie,  well  and  bravely  told. 
There  was  a  somewhat  ungainly,  innocent,  rustic-looking 
youth  in  our  companv,  from  whose  eyes  simple  truth  peeped 
12 


254  MEMOIRS. 

out  like  two  country  girls  at  two  Sunday-school  windows. 
He,  having  been  sent  to  the  barracks  to  get  some  fodder, 
with  strict  injunction  to  return  immediately,  of  course  lay 
down  at  once  in  the  hay  and  had  a  good  long  nap.  The 
rebels  came  and  roused  him  out,  but  promised  to  let  him  go 
free  on  condition  that  he  would  tell  the  sacred  truth  as  to 
how  many  of  us  Federal  troops  were  in  Carlisle.  And  he, 
moved  by  sympathy  for  his  kind  captors,  and  swearing  by 
the  Great  Copperhead  Serpent,  begged  them  to  fly  for  their 
lives ;  "  for  twenty  regiments  of  regulars,  and  Heaven  only 
knew  how  many  volunteers,  had  come  in  that  afternoon,  and 
the  whole  North  was  rising,  and  trains  running,  and  fresh 
levies  pouring  in." 

The  rebels  believed  him,  but  they  would  not  depart  with 
out  giving  us  a  touch  of  their  quality,  and  so  fired  shell  and 
grape  in  on  us  till  two  in  the  morning.  There  were  two 
regiments  of  "  common  fellows,"  or  valiant  city  roughs,  witli 
us,  who  all  hid  themselves  in  terror  wherever  they  could. 
But  our  company,  though  unable  to  fire  more  than  a  few 
shots,  were  kept  under  fire,  and,  being  all  gentlemen,  not  a 
man  flinched. 

I  did  not,  to  tell  the  truth,  like  our  captain ;  but  what 
ever  his  faults  were,  and  he  had  some,  cowardice  was  not 
among  them.  -  Some  men  are  reckless  of  danger ;  he  seemed 
to  be  absolutely  insensible  to  it,  as  I  more  than  once  observed, 
to  my  great  admiration.  He  was  but  a  few  feet  from  me, 
giving  orders  to  a  private,  when  a  shell  burst  immediately 
over  or  almost  between  them.  Neither  was  hurt,  but  the 
young  man  naturally  shied,  when  Landis  gruffly  cried, "  Never 
mind  the  shells,  sir ;  they'll  not  hurt  you  till  they  hit  you." 

I  was  leaning  against  a  lamp-post  when  a  charge  of  grape 
went  through  the  lamp.  Eemembering  the  story  in  "  Peter 
Simple,"  and  that  "  lightning  never  strikes  twice  in  the  same 
place,"  I  remained  quiet,  when  there  came  at  once  another, 
smashing  what  was  left  of  the  glass  about  two  feet  above  my 
head. 


LIFE   DURING  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  255 

Long  after  the  war,  when  I  was  one  day  walking  with 
Theodore  Fassitt,  I  told  him  the  tale  of  how  I  had  awakened 
the  family  at  the  fire  in  Munich.  And  Theodore  dolefully 
exclaimed,  "  I  don't  see  why  it  is  that  /  can  never  do  any 
thing  heroic  or  fine  like  that !  "  Then  I  said,  "  Theodore, 
I  will  tell  you  a  story.  Once  upon  a  time  there  was  a  boy 
only  eighteen  years  of  age,  and  it  happened  in  the  war  that 
he  was  in  a  town,  and  the  rebels  shelled  it.  Now  this  boy 
had  charge  of  four  horses,  and  the  general  had  told  him  to 
stay  in  one  place,  before  a  church ;  and  he  obeyed.  The 
shells  came  thick  and  fast — I  saw  it  all  myself — and  by-and- 
bye  one  came  and  took  off  a  leg  from  one  of  the  horses. 
Then  he  was  in  a  bad  way  with  his  horses,  but  he  stayed. 
After  a  while  the  general  came  along,  and  asked  him  '  why 
the  devil  he  was  stopping  there.'  And  he  replied,  '  I  was 
ordered  to,  sir  ! '  Then  the  general  told  him  to  get  behind 
the  church  at  once." 

"  Why ! "  cried  Theodore  in  amazement,  "  7  was  that 
boij  !  " 

"  Yes,"  I  replied ;  "  and  the  famous  Roman  sentinel  who 
remained  at  his  post  in  Pompeii  was  no  braver,  and  I  don't 
think  he  had  so  hard  a  time  of  it  as  you  had  with  that  horse." 

I  was  put  on  guard.  The  others  departed  or  lay  down  to 
sleep  on  the  ground.  The  fire  slackened,  and  only  now  and 
then  a  shell  came  with  its  diabolical  scream  like  a  dragon 
into  the  town.  All  at  last  was  quiet,  when  there  came  sham 
bling  to  me  an  odd  figure.  There  had  been  some  slight  at 
tempt  by  him  to  look  like  a  soldier — he  had  a  feather  in  his 
hat — but  he  carried  his  rifle  as  if  after  deer  or  raccoons,  and 
as  if  he  were  used  to  it. 

"  Say,  Cap ! "  he  exclaimed,  "  kin  you  tell  me  where  a 
chap  could  get  some  ammynition?" 

"  G  o  to  your  quartermaster,"  I  replied. 

"  Ain't  got  no  quartermaster." 

"  Well,  then  to  your  commanding  officer — to  your  regi 
ment." 


256  MEMOIRS. 

"  Ain't  got  no  commanding  officer  nowher'  this  side  o' 
God,  nor  no  regiment." 

"  Then  who  the  devil  are  you,  and  where  do  you  belong? " 

"  Don't  belong  nowher'.  I'll  jest  tell  you,  Cap,  how  it  is. 
I  live  in  the  south  line  of  New  York  State,  and  when  I  heard 
that  the  rebs  had  got  inter  Pennsylvany,  forty  of  us  held  a 
meetin'  and  'pinted  me  Cap'n.  So  we  came  down  here  cross 
country,  and  'rived  this  a'ternoon,  and  findin'  fightin'  goin' 
on,  went  straight  for  the  bush.  And  gettin'  cover,  we  shot 
the  darndest  sight  of  rebels  you  ever  did  see.  And  now  all 
our  ammynition  is  expended,  I've  come  to  town  for  more,  for 
ther's  some  of  'em  still  left— who  want  killin'  badly." 

"  See  here,  my  friend,"  I  replied.  "  You  don't  know  it, 
but  you're  nothing  but  a  bush-whacker,  and  anybody  has  a 
right  to  hang  or  shoot  you  out  of  hand.  Do  you  see  that 
great  square  tent?"  Here  I  pointed  to  the  general's  mar 
quee.  "  Go  in  there  and  report  yourself  and  get  enrolled." 
And  the  last  I  saw  of  him  he  was  stumbling  over  the  sticks 
in  the  right  direction.  This  was  my  first  experience  of  a 
real  guerilla — a  character  with  whom  I  was  destined  to  make 
further  experience  in  after  days. 

An  earlier  incident  was  to  me  extremely  curious.  There 
was  in  our  battery  a  young  gentleman  named  Stewart  Pat 
terson,  noted  for  his  agreeable,  refined  manners.  He  was 
the  gunner  of  our  cannon  No.  Two.  We  had  brass  Napo 
leons.  At  the  distance  of  about  one  mile  the  rebels  were 
shelling  us.  Patterson  brought  his  gun  to  bear  on  theirs, 
and  the  two  exchanged  shots  at  the  same  instant.  Out  of 
the  smoke  surrounding  Patterson's  gun  I  saw  a  sword-blade 
fly  perhaps  thirty  feet,  and  then  himself  borne  by  two  or 
three  men,  blood  flowing  profusely.  The  four  fingers  of  his 
right  hand  had  been  cut  away  clean  by  a  piece  of  shell. 

At  the  instant  I  saw  the  blade  flash  in  its  flight,  I  recalled 
seeing  precisely  the  same  thing  long  before  in  Heidelberg. 
There  was  a  famous  duellist  who  had  fought  sixty  or  seventy 
times  and  never  received  a  scratch.  One  day  he  was  acting 


LIFE  DURING  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  257 

as  second,  when  the" blade  of  his  principal,  becoming  broken 
at  the  hilt  by  a  violent  blow,  flew  across  the  room,  rebounded, 
and  cut  the  second's  lip  entirely  open.  It  was  remarkable 
that  I  should  twice  in  my  life  have  seen  such  a  thing,  in  both 
instances  accompanied  by  wounds.  Long  after  I  met  Pat 
terson  in  Philadelphia,  I  think,  in  1883.  He  did  not  recog 
nise  me,  and  gave  me  his  left  hand.  I  said,  "  Not  that  hand, 
Patterson,  but  the  other.  You've  no  reason  to  be  ashamed 
of  it.  I  saw  the  fingers  shot  off." 

But  on  that  night  there  occurred  an  event  which,  in  the 
end,  after  years  of  suffering,  caused  the  deepest  sorrow  of  my 
life.  As  we  were  not  firing,  I  and  the  rest  of  the  men  of  the 
gun  were  lying  on  the  ground  to  escape  the  shells,  but  my 
brother,  who  was  nothing  if  not  soldierly  and  punctilious, 
stood  upright  in  his  place  just  beside  me.  There  came  a 
shell  which  burst  immediately,  and  very  closely  over  our 
heads,  and  a  piece  of  it  struck  my  brother  exactly  on  the 
brass  buckle  in  his  belt  on  the  spine.  The  blow  was  so 
severe  that  the  buckle  was  bent  in  two.  It  cut  through  his 
coat  and  shirt,  and  inflicted  a  slight  wound  two  inches  in 
length.  But  the  blow  on  the  spine  had  produced  a  concus 
sion  or  disorganisation  of  the  brain,  which  proved,  after  years 
of  suffering,  the  cause  of  his  death.  At  first  he  was  quite 
senseless,  but  as  he  came  to,  and  I  asked  him  anxiously  if  he 
was  hurt,  he  replied  sternly,  "  Go  back  immediately  to  your 
place  by  the  gun  ! "  He  was  like  grandfather  Leland. 

A  day  or  two  after,  while  we  were  on  a  forced  march  to 
intercept  a  party  of  rebels,  the  effect  of  the  wound  on  my 
brother's  brain  manifested  itself  in  a  tei'rible  hallucination. 
He  had  become  very  gloomy  and  reserved.  Taking  me  aside, 
he  informed  me  that  as  he  had  a  few  days  before  entered  a 
country-house,  contrary  to  an  order  issued,  to  buy  food,  he 
was  sure  that  Captain  Landis  meant  as  soon  as  possible  to 
have  him  shot,  but  that  he  intended,  the  instant  he  saw  any 
sign  of  this,  at  once  to  attack  and  kill  the  captain  !  Know 
ing  his  absolute  determined  and  inflexibly  truthful  char- 


258  MEMOIRS. 

acter,  and  seeing  a  fearful  expression  in  his  eyes,  I  was  much 
alarmed.  Reflecting  in  the  first  place  that  he  was  half- 
starved,  I  got  him  a  meal.  I  had  brought  from  Philadelphia 
two  pounds  of  dried  beef,  and  this,  carefully  hoarded,  had 
eked  out  many  a  piece  of  bread  for  a  meal.  I  begged  some 
bread,  gave  my  brother  some  beef  with  it,  and  I  think  suc 
ceeded  in  getting  him  some  coffee.  Then  I  went  to  Lieu 
tenant  Perkins — a  very  good  man — and  begged  leave  to  take 
my  brother's  guard  and  to  let  him  sleep.  He  consented,  and 
my  brother  gradually  came  to  his  mind,  or  at  least  to  a  bet 
ter  one.  But  he  was  never  the  same  person  afterwards,  his 
brain  having  been  permanently  affected,  and  he  died  in  con 
sequence  five  years  after. 

I  may  note  as  characteristic  of  my  brother,  that,  twelve 
years  after  his  death,  Walt  Whitman,  who  always  gravely 
spoke  the  exact  truth,  told  me  that  there  was  one  year  of  his 
life  during  which  he  had  received  no  encouragement  as  a 
poet,  and  so  much  ridicule  that  he  was  in  utter  despondency. 
At  that  time  he  received  from  Henry,  who  was  unknown  to 
him,  a  cheering  letter,  full  of  admiration,  which  had  a  great 
effect  on  him,  and  inspired  him  to  renewed  effort.  He  sent 
my  brother  a  copy  of  the  first  edition  of  his  "  Leaves  of 
Grass,"  with  his  autograph,  which  I  still  possess.  I  knew 
nothing  of  this  till  Whitman  told  me  of  it.  The  poet  de 
clared  to  me  very  explicitly  that  he  had  been  much  influ 
enced  by  my  brother's  letter,  which  was  like  a  single  star  in 
a  dark  night  of  despair,  and  I  have  indeed  no  doubt  that  the 
world  owes  more  to  it  than  will  ever  be  made  known. 

During  the  same  week  in  which  this  occurred  my  wife's 
only  brother,  Eodney  Fisher,  a  young  man,  and  captain  in 
the  regular  cavalry,  met  with  a  remarkably  heroic  death  at 
Aldie,  Virginia.  He  was  leading  what  was  described  as  "  the 
most  magnificent  and  dashing  charge  of  the  whole  cam 
paign,"  when  he  was  struck  by  a  bullet.  He  was  carried  to 
a  house,  where  he  died  within  a  week.  He  was  of  the  stock 
of  the  Delaware  Rodneys,  and  of  the  English  Admiral's,  or 


259 

of  the  best  blood  of  the  Eevolution,  and  well  worthy  of  it. 
It  was  all  in  a  great  cause,  but  these  deaths  entered  into  the 
soul  of  the  survivors,  and  we  grieve  for  them  to  this  day. 

Our  sufferings  as  soldiers  during  this  Emergency  were 
very  great.  I  heard  an  officer  who  had  been  through  the 
whole  war,  and  through  the  worst  of  it  in  Virginia,  declare 
that  he  had  never  suffered  as  he  did  with  us  this  summer. 
And  our  unfortunate  artillery  company  endured  far  more 
than  the  rest,  for  while  pains  were  taken  by  commanding 
officers  of  other  regiments,  especially  the  regulars,  to  obtain 
food,  our  captain,  either  because  they  had  the  advance  on 
him,  or  because  he  considered  starving  us  as  a  part  of  the 
military  drama,  took  little  pains  to  feed  us,  and  indeed  neg 
lected  his  men  very  much.  As  we  had  no  doctor,  and  many 
of  our  company  suffered  from  cholera  morbus,  I,  having  some 
knowledge  of  medicine,  succeeded  in  obtaining  some  red 
pepper,  a  bottle  of  Jamaica  ginger,  and  whisky,  and  so  re 
lieved  a  great  many  patients.  One  morning  our  captain 
forbade  my  attending  to  the  invalids  any  more.  "  Proper 
medical  attendance,"  he  said,  "  would  be  provided."  It  was 
net ;  only  now  and  then  on  rare  occasions  was  a  surgeon  bor 
rowed  for  a  day.  What  earthly  difference  it  could  make  in 
discipline  (where  there  was  no  show  or  trace  of  it)  whether  I 
looked  after  the  invalids  or  not  was  not  perceptible.  But 
our  commander,  though  brave,  was  unfortunately  one  of 
those  men  who  are  also  gifted  with  a  great  deal  of  "  pure 
cussedness,"  and  think  that  the  exhibiting  it  is  a  sign  of 
bravery.  Although  we  had  no  tents,  only  a  miserably  rotten 
old  gun-cover,  and  not  always  that,  to  sleep  under  (I  gener 
ally  slept  in  the  open  air,  frequently  in  the  rain),  and  often 
no  issue  of  food  for  days,  we  were  strictly  prohibited  from 
foraging  or  entering  the  country  houses  to  buy  food.  This, 
which  was  a  great  absurdity,  was  about  the  only  point  of 
military  discipline  strictly  enforced. 

At  one  time  during  the  war,  when  men  were  not  allowed 
to  sleep  in  the  country  houses  (to  protect  their  owners),  the 


2GO  MEMOIRS. 

soldiers  would  very  often  burn  these  houses  down,  in  order 
that,  when  the  family  had  fled,  they  might  use  the  fireplace 
and  chimney  for  cooking;  and  so  our  men,  forbidden  to 
enter  the  country  houses  to  buy  or  beg  food,  stole  it. 

I  can  recall  one  very  remarkable  incident.  We  had  six 
guns,  heavy  old  brass  Napoleons.  One  afternoon  we  had  to 
go  uphill — in  many  cases  it  was  terribly  steep — by  a  road 
like  those  in  Devonshire,  resembling  a  ditch.  It  rained  in 
torrents  and  the  water  was  knee-deep.  The  poor  mules  had 
to  be  urged  and  aided  in  every  way,  and  half  the  pulling  and 
pushing  was  done  by  us.  All  of  us  worked  like  navvies.  So 
we  went  onwards  and  upwards  for  sixteen  miles !  When  we 
got  to  the  top  of  the  hill,  out  of  one  hundred  privates,  Henry, 
I,  and  four  others  alone  remained.  E.  W.  Gilder  was  one  of 
these,  besides  Landis  and  Lieutenant  Perkins — that  is  to  say, 
we  alone  had  not  given  out  from  fatigue ;  but  the  rest  soon 
followed.  This  exploit  was  long  after  cited  as  one  of  the 
most  extraordinary  of  the  war — and  so  it  was.  We  were 
greatly  complimented  on  it.  Old  veterans  marvelled  at  it. 
But  what  was  worse,  I  had  to  lie  all  night  on  sharp  flints — 
i.  e.,  the  slag  or  debris  of  an  iron  smeltery  or  old  forge  out  of 
doors — in  a  terrible  rain,  and,  though  tired  to  death,  got  very 
little  sleep ;  nor  had  we  any  food  whatever  even  then  or  the 
next  day.  Commissariat  there  was  none,  and  very  little  at 
any  time. 

From  all  that  I  learned  from  many  intimate  friends  who 
were  in  the  war,  I  believe  that  we  in  the  battery  suffered  to 
the  utmost  all  that  men  can  suffer  in  the  field,  short  of 
wounds  and  death.  Yet  it  is  a  strange  thing,  that  had  I  not 
received  at  this  time  most  harassing  and  distressing  news 
from  home,  and  been  in  constant  fear  as  regards  my  brother, 
I  should  have  enjoyed  all  this  Emergency  like  a  picnic.  We 
often  marched  and  camped  in  the  valley  of  the  Cumberland 
and  in  Maryland,  in  deep  valleys,  by  roaring  torrents  or  "on 
the  mountains  high,"  in  scenery  untrodden  by  any  artist  or 
tourist,  of  marvellous  grandeur  and  beauty.  One  day  we 


LIFE  DURING  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  261 

came  upon  a  scene  which  may  be  best  described  by  the  fact 
that  my  brother  and  I  both  stopped,  and  both  cried  out  at 
once,  "  Switzerland ! "  The  beauty  of  Nature  was  to  me  a 
constant  source  of  delight.  Another  was  the  realisation  of 
the  sense  of  duty  and  the  pleasure  of  war  for  a  noble  cause. 
It  was  once  declared  by  a  reviewer  that  in  my  Breitmann 
poems  the  true  gaudium  certaminis,  or  enjoyment  of  battle, 
is  more  sincerely  expressed  than  by  any  modern  poet,  because 
there  is  no  deliberate  or  conscious  effort  to  depict  it  seriously. 
And  I  believe  that  I  deserved  this  opinion,  because  the  order 
to  march,  the  tramp  and  rattle  and  ring  of  cavalry  and  artil 
lery,  and  the  roar  of  cannon,  always  exhilarated  me ;  and 
sometimes  the  old  days  of  France  would  recur  to  me.  One 
day,  at  some  place  where  we  were  awaiting  an  attack  and  I 
was  on  guard,  General  Smith,  pausing,  asked  me  something 
of  which  all  I  could  distinguish  was  "  Fire — before."  Think 
ing  he  had  said,  "Were  you  ever  under  fire  before?"  and 
much  surprised  at  this  interest  in  my  biography,  I  replied, 
"  Yes,  General — in  Paris — at  the  barricades  in  Forty-eight." 
He  looked  utterly  amazed,  and  inquired,  "  What  the  devil  did 
you  think  I  said  ?  "  I  explained,  when  he  laughed  heartily, 
and  told  me  that  his  question  was,  "Has  there  been  any 
firing  here  before  ?  " 

Two  very  picturesque  scenes  occur  to  me.  One  was  a 
night  before  the  battle  of  Gettysburg.  The  country  was 
mountain  and  valley,  and  the  two  opposing  armies  were 
camped  pretty  generally  in  sight  of  one  another.  There  was, 
I  suppose,  nearly  half  a  cord  of  wood  burning  for  every  twelve 
men,  and  these  camp-fires  studded  the  vast  landscape  like 
countless  reflections  of  the  stars  above,  or  rather  as  if  all  were 
stars,  high  or  low.  It  was  one  of  the  most  wonderful  sights 
conceivable,  and  I  said  at  the  time  that  it  was  as  well  worth 
seeing  as  Vesuvius  in  eruption. 

Henry  had  studied  for  eighteen  months  in  the  British  Art 
School  in  Rome,  and  passed  weeks  in  sketching  the  Alham- 
bra,  and,  till  he  received  his  wound,  took  great  joy  in  the  pic- 


262  MEMOIRS. 

turesque  scenery  and  "  points  "  of  military  life.  But  it  is  in 
credible  how  little  we  ate  or  got  to  eat,  and  how  hard  we 
worked.  It  is  awful  to  be  set  to  digging  ditches  in  a  soil 
nine-tenths  stone,  when  starving. 

As  we  were  raw  recruits,  we  were  not  put  under  fire  at 
Gettysburg,  but  kept  in  Smith's  reserve.  But  on  the  night 
after  the  defeat,  when  Lee  retreated  in  such  mad  and  need 
less  haste  across  the  Potomac,  we  were  camped  perhaps  the 
nearest  of  any  troops  to  the  improvised  bridge,  I  think  within 
a  mile.  That  night  I  was  on  guard,  and  all  night  long  I  heard 
the  sound  of  cavalry,  the  ring  and  rattle  of  arms,  and  all  that 
indicates  an  army  in  headlong  flight.  I  say  that  they  went 
in  needless  haste.  I  may  be  quite  in  the  wrong,  but  I  have 
always  believed  that  Meade  acted  on  the  prudent  policy  of 
making  a  bridge  of  gold  for  a  retreating  enemy ;  and  I  always 
believed,  too,  that  at  heart  he  did  not  at  all  desire  to  inflict 
extreme  suffering  on  the  foe.  Had  he  been  a  General  Bir- 
ney,  he  would  have  smote  them  then  and  there  hip  and  thigh, 
and  so  ended  the  war  "  for  good  and  all,"  like  a  Cromwell, 
with  such  a  slaughter  as  was  never  seen.  I  base  all  this  on 
one  fact.  At  two  o'clock  on  the  afternoon  before  that  night 
I  went  to  a  farmhouse  to  borrow  an  axe  wherewith  to  cut 
some  fuel ;  and  I  was  told  that  the  rebels  had  carried  away 
every  axe  in  great  haste  from  every  house,  in  order  to  make  a 
bridge.  Xow,  if  I  knew  that  at  two  o'clock,  General  Meade, 
if  he  had  any  scouts  at  all,  must  have  known  it.  But — qui 
vult  decipi,  decipiatur. 

That  ended  the  Emergency.  The  next  day,  I  think,  we 
received  the  welcome  news  that  we  were  no  longer  needed  and 
would  soon  be  sent  home.  On  the  way  we  encamped  for  a 
week  at  some  place,  I  forget  where.  There  was  no  drill  now 
— we  seldom  had  any — no  special  care  of  us,  and  no  "  polic 
ing  "  or  keeping  clean.  Symptoms  of  typhoid  fever  soon 
appeared  ;  forty  of  our  hundred  were  more  or  less  ill.  My 
brother  and  I  knew  very  well  that  the  only  way  to  avert  this 
was  to  exercise  vigorously.  On  waking  in  the  morning  we  all 


LIFE  DURING  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  263 

experienced  languor  and  lassitude.  Those  who  yielded  to  it 
fell  ill.  Henry  was  always  so  ready  to  work,  that  once  our 
sergeant,  Mr.  Bullard,  interposed  and  gave  the  duty  to  an 
other,  saying  it  was  not  fair.  I  always  remembered  it  with 
gratitude.  But  this  feverish  languor  passed  away  at  once  with 
a  little  chopping  of  wood,  bringing  water,  or  cooking. 

One  more  reminiscence.  Our  lieutenant,  Perkins,  was  a 
pious  man,  and  on  Sunday  mornings  held  religious  service, 
which  we  were  obliged  to  attend.  One  day,  when  we  had  by 
good  fortune  rations  of  fresh  meat,  it  was  cooked  for  dinner 
and  put  by  in  two  large  kettles.  During  the  service  two  hun 
gry  pigs  came,  and  in  our  full  sight  overturned  the  kettles, 
and,  after  rooting  over  the  food,  escaped  with  large  pieces. 
I  did  not  care  to  dine,  like  St.  Antonio,  on  pigs'  leavings. 
My  brother  finding  me,  asked  why  I  looked  so  glum.  I  re 
plied  that  I  was  hungry.  "  Is  that  all  ?  "  he  replied.  "  Come 
with  me ! "  We  went  some  distance  until  we  came  to  a  farm 
house  in  the  forest.  He  entered,  and,  to  my  amazement,  was 
greeted  as  an  old  friend.  He  had  been  there  in  the  campaign 
of  the  previous  year.  I  was  at  once  supplied  with  a  meal. 
My  brother  was  asked  to  send  them  newspapers  after  his  re 
turn.  He  never  sought  for  mysteries  and  despised  dramatic 
effects,  but  his  life  was  full  of  them.  Once,  when  in  Naples, 
he  was  accustomed  to  meet  by  chance  every  day,  in  some  re 
tired  walk,  a  young  lady.  They  spoke,  and  met  and  met 
again,  till  they  became  like  friends.  One  day  he  saw  her  in 
a  court  procession,  and  learned  for  the  first  time  that  she  was 
a  younger  daughter  of  the  King.  But  he  never  met  her 
again. 

There  were  two  or  three  boys  of  good  family,  none  above 
sixteen,  who  had  sworn  themselves  in  as  of  age — recruiting 
officers  were  not  particular — and  who  soon  developed  brilliant 
talents  for  "  foraging,"  looting,  guerilla  warfare,  horse-steal 
ing,  pot-hunting  rebels,  and  all  those  little  accomplishments 
which  appear  so  naturally  and  pleasingly  in  youth  when  in 
the  field.  For  bringing  out  the  art  of  taking  care  of  your- 


264  MEMOIRS. 

self,  a  camp  in  time  of  war  is  superior  even  to  "  sleeping  about 
in  the  markets,"  as  recommended  by  Mr.  Weller.  Other  tal 
ents  may  be  limited,  but  the  amount  of  "  devil  "  which  can 
be  developed  out  of  a  "  smart  "  boy  as  a  soldier  is  absolutely 
infinite.  College  is  a  Sunday-school  to  it.  One  of  these  youths 
had  "  obtained  "  a  horse  somewhere,  which  he  contrived  to 
carry  along.  Many  of  our  infantry  regiments  gradually  con 
verted  themselves  into  cavalry  by  this  process  of  "  obtaining  " 
steeds ;  and  as  the  officers  found  that  their  men  could  walk 
better  on  horses'  legs,  they  permitted  it.  This  promising 
youngster  was  one  day  seated  on  a  caisson  or  ammunition  wag 
gon  full  of  shells,  &c.,  when  it  blew  up.  By  a  miracle  he  rose 
in  the  air,  fell  on  the  ground  unhurt,  and  marching  immedi 
ately  up  to  the  lieutenant  and  touching  his  hat,  exclaimed, 
"  Please,  sir,  caisson  No.  Two  is  blown  to  hell ;  please  appoint 
me  to  another  !  "  That  oath  was  not  recorded.  Poor  boy  ! 
he  died  in  the  war. 

There  was  one  man  in  our  corps,  a  good-natured,  agree 
able  person,  a  professional  politician,  who  astonished  me  by 
the  fact  that  however  starved  we  might  be,  he  had  always  a 
flask  of  whisky  wherewith  to  treat  his  friends  !  Where  or 
how  he  always  got  it  I  never  could  divine.  But  in  Amer 
ica  every  politician  always  has  whisky  or  small  change  where 
with  to  treat.  Always.  Money  was  generally  of  little  use, 
for  there  was  rarely  anything  to  buy  anywhere.  I  soon  de 
veloped  here  and  there  an  Indian-like  instinct  in  many 
things,  and  this  is  indeed  deep  in  my  nature.  I  cannot  ex 
plain  it,  but  it  is  there.  I  became  expert  when  we  approached 
a  house  at  divining,  by  the  look  of  waggons  or  pails  or  hen 
coops,  whether  there  was  meal  or  bread  or  a  mill  anywhere 
near.  One  day  I  informed  our  lieutenant  that  a  detachment 
of  rebel  cavalry  had  recently  passed.  He  asked  me  how  I 
knew  it.  I  replied  that  rebel  horses,  being  from  mountain 
ous  Virginia,  had  higher  cocks  and  narrower  to  their  shoes, 
and  one  or  two  more  nails  than  ours,  which  is  perfectly  true. 
And  where  did  I  learn  that?  Not  from  anybody.  I  had 


LIFE  DURING  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  265 

noticed  the  difference  as  soon  as  I  saw  the  tracks,  and  guessed 
the  cause.  One  day,  in  after  years  in  England,  I  noticed 
that  in  coursing,  or  with  beagles,  the  track  of  a  gypsy  was 
exactly  like  mine,  or  that  of  all  Americans — that  is,  Indian- 
like  and  straight-forward.  I  never  found  a  Saxon-English 
man  who  had  this  step,  nor  one  who  noticed  such  a  thing, 
which  I  or  an  Indian  would  observe  at  once.  Once,  in  Rome, 
Mr.  Story  showed  me  a  cast  of  a  foot,  and  asked  me  what  it 
was.  I  replied  promptly,  "  Either  an  Indian  girl's  or  an 
American  young  lady's,  whose  ancestors  have  been  two  hun 
dred  years  in  the  country."  It  was  the  latter.  Such  feet 
lift  or  leap,  as  if  raised  every  time  to  go  over  entangled 
grass  or  sticks.  Like  an  Indian,  I  instinctively  observe 
everybody's  ears,  which  are  unerring  indices  of  character.  I 
can  sustain,  and  always  could  endure,  incredible  fasts,  but  for 
this  I  need  coffee  in  the  morning.  "Mark  Twain" — whom 
I  saw  yesterday  at  his  villa,  as  I  correct  this  proof — also  has 
this  peculiar  Indian-like  or  American  faculty  of  observing 
innumerable  little  things  which  no  European  would  ever 
think  of.  There  is,  I  think,  a  great  deal  of  "  hard  old  In 
jun  "  in  him.  The  most  beautiful  of  his  works  are  the  three 
which  are  invariably  bound  in  silk  or  muslin.  They  are 
called  "  The  Three  Daughters,  or  the  Misses  Clemens." 

It  occurred  to  me,  after  I  had  recorded  the  events  of  our 
short  but  truly  vigorous  and  eventful  campaign,  to  write  to 
11.  W.  Gilder  and  ask  him — quid  memories  datum  est — "  what 
memories  he  had  of  that  great  war,  wherein  we  starved  and 
swore,  and  all  but  died."  There  are  men  in  whose  letters  we 
are  as  sure  to  find  genial  life  as  a  spaccio  di  vino  or  wine 
shop  in  a  Florentine  street,  and  this  poet-editor  is  one  of 
them.  And  he  replied  with  an  epistle  not  at  all  intended 
for  type,  which  I  hereby  print  without  his  permission,  and 
in  defiance  of  all  the  custom  or  courtesy  which  inspires 
gentlemen  of  the  press. 


266  MEMOIRS. 

"  May  8th,  1893. 

"EDITORIAL  DEPARTMENT,  THE  CENTURY  MAGAZINE, 
"  UNION  SQUARE,  NEW  YORK. 

"  MY  DEAR  LELAND  :  How  your  letter  carries  me  back !  Do  you 
know  that  one  night  when  I  was  trudging  along  in  the  dark  over  a 
road-bed  where  had  been  scattered  some  loose  stones  to  form  a  founda 
tion,  I  heard  you  and  another  comrade  talking  me  over  in  the  way  to 
which  you  refer  in  your  letter?  Well,  it  was  either  you  or  the  other 
comrade  who  said  you  had  given  me  something  to  eat,  and  I  know  that 
I  must  have  seemed  very  fragile,  and  at  times  woe-begone.  I  was  pos 
sibly  the  youngest  in  the  crowd.  I  was  nineteen,  and  really  enjoyed  it 
immensely  notwithstanding. 

"  I  remember  you  in  those  days  as  a  splendid  expressor  of  our  mis 
eries.  You  had  a  magnificent  vocabulary,  wherewith  you  could  elo 
quently  and  precisely  describe  our  general  condition  of  starvation,  mud, 
ill-cquippedness,  and  over-work.  As  I  think  of  those  days,  I  hear 
reverberating  over  the  mountain-roads  the  call,  '  Cannoneers  to  the 
wheels  ! '  and  in  imagination  I  plunge  knee-deep  into  the  mire  and  grab 
the  spokes  of  the  caisson.* 

"  Do  you  remember  the  night  we  spent  at  the  forge  ?  I  burnt  my 
knees  at  the  fire  out-doors,  while  in  my  ears  was  pouring  a  deluge  from 
the  clouds.  I  finally  gave  it  up,  and  spent  the  rest  of  the  night  crouch 
ing  upon  the  fire-bed  of  the  forge  itself,  most  uncomfortably. 

"  You  will  remember  that  we  helped  dig  the  trenches  at  the  fort  on 
the  southern  side  of  the  river  from  Harrisburg,f  and  that  one  section 

*  In  reference  to  "  heaving  out "  by  main  force,  cannon  from  some 
deep  slough,  perhaps  of  stiff  clay,  which  holds  like  glue,  or,  what  I  think 
far  more  wearisome,  urging  them  along  for  miles  over  the  heaviest  roads 
or  broken  ways,  when  the  poor  exhausted  mules  have  almost  given  out. 
Though,  as  he  says,  he  was  only  nineteen  and  seemed  very  fragile,  the 
indomitable  pluck  and  perseverance  of  Gilder  in  all  such  trials  were  such 
as  to  call  special  commendation  from  my  brother  Ilenry,  who  was  not 
habitually  wasteful  of  praise. 

f  "  Well  do  I  remember  "  also  what  accursed  work  it  was,  the  ground 
consisting  chiefly  of  broken  stone,  and  how  a  number  of  Paddies,  who 
were  accustomed  to  such  labour,  assembled  above  and  around  us  to  en 
joy  the  unusual  sight  of  "  jontlemen  "  digging  like  '•  canawlers,"  and  how 
I,  while  at  my  spade,  excited  their  hilarity  and  delight  by  casting  at 
them  scraps  of  "  ould  Eerish,"  or  Irish.  The  fight  of  the  section  here 
alluded  to  was,  I  believe,  rather  of  the  nature  of  an  improvised  rencontre, 
albeit  two  or  three  rebels  were  killed  in  the  artillery  duel.  Corporal 


LIFE  DURING  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  267 

of  the  battery  got  into  a  fight  near  that  fort ;  nor  can  you  have  forgot 
ten  when  Stuart  Patterson's  hand  was  shot  off  at  Carlisle.  As  he  passed 
me,  I  heard  him  say,  '  My  God,  I'm  shot ! '  That  night,  after  we  were 
told  to  retire  out  of  range  of  the  cannon,  while  we  were  lying  under 
a  tree  near  one  of  the  guns,  an  officer  called  for  volunteers  to  take 
the  piece  out  of  range.  I  stood  up  with  three  others,  but  seeing  and 
hearing  a  shell  approach,  I  cried  out,  '  Wait  a  moment ! '  —  which 
checked  them.  Just  then  the  shell  exploded  within  a  yard  of  the 
cannon.  If  we  had  not  paused,  some  of  us  would  surely  have  been 
hit.  We  then  rushed  out,  seized  the  cannon,  and  brought  it  out  of 
range. 

"  By  the  way,  General  William  P.  Smith  (Baldy  Smith)  has  since 
told  me  that  he  asked  permission  to  throw  the  militia  (including  our 
selves)  across  one  of  Lee's  lines  of  retreat.  If  he  had  been  permitted  to 
do  so,  I  suppose  you  and  I  would  not  have  been  in  correspondence 
now. 

"  You  remember  undoubtedly  the  flag  of  truce  that  came  up  into 
the  town  before  the  bombardment  began.  The  man  was  on  horseback 
and  had  the  conventional  white  flag.  The  story  was  that  Baldy  Smith 
sent  word  '  that  if  they  wanted  the  town  they  could  come  and  take 
it.'  *  I  suppose  you  realise  that  we  were  really  a  part  of  Meade's 

Penington  was,  I  believe,  as  usual,  the  inspiring  Mephistopheles  of 
the  affair. 

*  This  reply,  which  is  much  better  in  every  respect  than  that  of  "  The 
old  guard  dies  but  never  yields,"  was  made  in  the  face  of  far  more  over 
whelming  numbers,  and  has  few  parallels  for  sheer  audacity,  all  things 
considered,  in  the  history  of  modern  warfare.  It  passed  into  a  very 
widely-spread  popular  mot  in  America.  It  is  more  than  an  on  dit,  for 
I  was  nearly  within  ear-shot  when  it  was  uttered,  and  it  was  promptly 
repeated  to  me.  Yet,  if  my  memory  serves  me  right,  there  is  some 
thing  like  this,  "  Come  and  take  it ! "  recorded  in  the  early  Tuscan  wars 
in  Villari's  introduction  to  the  "  Life  of  Machiavelli,"  translated  by  his 
accomplished  wife.  I  have,  as  I  write  this  note,  just  had  the  pleasure 
of  meeting  with  the  Minister  and  Madame  Villari  at  a  dinner  at  Sena 
tor  Comparetti's  in  Florence,  which  is  perhaps  the  reason  why  I  recall 
the  precedent.  And  I  may  also  recall  as  a  noteworthy  incident,  that  at 
this  dinner  Professor  Milani,  the  great  Etruscologist  and  head  of  the 
Archasological  Museum,  congratulated  me  very  much  on  having  been 
the  first  and  only  person  who  ever  discovered  an  old  Etruscan  word 
still  living  in  the  traditions  of  the  people — i.  e.,  Intial,  the  Spirit  of  the 
Haunting  Shadow.  This  is  a  little  discursive — maisje  prends  mon  bien 


268  MEMOIRS. 

right,  and  that  we  helped  somewhat  to  delay  the  rebel  left  wing.  Do 
you  not  remember  hearing  from  our  position  at  Carlisle  the  guns  of 
that  great  battle — the  turning-point  of  the  war  ?  * 

"  1  could  run  on  in  this  way,  but  your  own  memory  must  be  full  of 
the  subject.  I  wish  that  we  could  sometime  have  a  reunion  of  the  old 
battery  in  Philadelphia.  I  have  a  most  distinct  and  pleasant  remem 
brance  of  your  brother — a  charming  personality  indeed,  a  handsome 
refined  face  and  dignified  bearing.  I  remember  being  so  starved  as  to 
eat  crackers  that  had  fallen  on  the  ground ;  and  I  devoured,  too,  wheat 
from  the  fields  rubbed  in  the  hands  to  free  it  from  the  ear.  .  .  . 

"  Sincerely,  R.  W.  GILDER. 

"  P.  S. — I  could  write  more,  but  you  will  not  need  it  from  me." 

Truly,  I  was  that  other  comrade  whom  Gilder  overheard 
commending  him,  and  it  was  I  who  gave  him  something  to 
eat,  I  being  the  one  in  camp  who  looked  specially  after  two 
or  three  of  the  youngest  to  see  that  they  did  not  starve,  and 
who  doctored  the  invalids. 

I  here  note,  with  all  due  diffidence,  that  Mr.  Gilder  chiefly 
remembers  me  as  "  a  splendid  expressor  of  our  miseries,  with 
a  magnificent  vocabulary "  wherewith  to  set  forth  fearful 
adversities.  I  have  never  been  habitually  loquacious  in  life ; 
full  many  deem  me  deeply  reticent  and  owl-like  in  my  taci 
turnity,  but  I  "  can  hoot  when  the  moon  shines,"  nor  is  there 

oiije  le  trouve,  and  it  is  all  autobiographic  !  "  It  is  all  turkey,"  as  the 
wolf  said  when  he  ate  the  claws. 

The  proposal  of  General  Smith  to  resist  with  us  alone  the  tre 
mendous  maddened  rush  of  half  of  Lee's  veterans  has  its  re-echo  in  my 
ballad,  where  Breitmann  attempts  with  his  Bummers  to  stem  the  great 
army  of  the  South.  The  result  would  have  probably  been  the  same — 
that  is,  we  should  have  been  "  gobbled  up."  But  he  would  have  un 
doubtedly  tried  it  without  misgiving.  I  have  elsewhere  narrated  my 
only  interview  with  him. 

*  The  thunder  of  the  ai'tillery  at  Gettysburg  was  indeed  something 
to  be  long  and  well  remembered.  It  was  so  awful  that  on  the  field  wild 
rabbits,  appalled  by  the  sound,  ran  to  the  gunners  and  soldiers  and  tried 
to  take  refuge  in  their  bosoms.  Those  who  have  only  heard  cannon 
fired  singly,  or  a  single  discharge  of  cannon,  can  have  no  conception  of 
what  such  sounds  when  long  sustained  are  like. 


LIFE  DURING  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  269 

altogether  lacking  in  me  in  great  emergencies  a  certain  rude 
kind  of  popular  eloquence,  which  has — I  avow  it  with  humil 
ity — enabled  me  invariably  to  hold  my  own  in  verbal  encoun 
ters  with  tinkers,  gypsies,  and  the  like,  among  whom  "  chaff  " 
is  developed  to  a  degree  of  which  few  respectable  people  have 
any  conception,  and  which  attains  to  a  refinement  of  sarcasm, 
originality,  and  humour  in  the  London  of  the  lower  orders, 
for  which  there  is  no  parallel  in  Paris,  or  in  any  other  Eu 
ropean  capital ;  so  that  even  among  my  earliest  experiences 
I  can  remember,  after  an  altercation  with  an  omnibus-driver, 
he  applied  to  me  the  popular  remark  that  he  was  "  blessed  if 
he  didn't  believe  that  the  gemman  had  been  takin'  lessons  in 
language  hof  a  cab-driver,  and  set  up  o'  nights  to  learn" 
But  the  ingenious  American  is  not  one  whit  behind  the  vig 
orous  Londoner  in  "  de  elegant  fluency  of  sass,"  as  darkies 
term  it,  and  it  moves  my  heart  to  think  that,  after  thirty 
years,  and  after  the  marvellous  experiences  of  men  who  are 
masters  of  our  English  tongue  which  the  editor  of  the  Century 
must  have  had,  he  still  retains  remembrance  of  my  oratory ! 

At  last  we  were  marched  and  railroaded  back  to  Philadel 
phia.  I  need  not  say  that  we  were  welcome,  or  that  I  en 
joyed  baths,  clean  clothes,  and  the  blest  sensation  of  feeling 
decent  once  more.  Everything  in  life  seemed  to  be  luxurious 
as  it  had  never  been  before.  Luxuries  are  very  conventional. 
A  copy  of  Prsetorius,  for  which  I  paid  only  fifteen  shillings, 
was  to  me  lately  a  luxury  for  weeks ;  so  is  a  visit  to  a  picture 
gallery.  For  years  after,  I  had  but  to  think  of  the  Emer 
gency  to  realise  that  I  was  actually  in  all  the  chief  conditions 
of  happiness. 

Feeling  that,  although  I  was  in  superb  health  and  strength, 
the  seeds  of  typhoid  were  in  me,  I  left  town  as  soon  as  pos 
sible,  and  went  with  my  wife,  her  sister,  and  two  half-nieces, 
or  nieces  by  marriage,  and  child-nephew,  Edward  Robins,  to 
Cape  May,  a  famous  bathing-place  by  the  ocean.  One  of  the 
little  girls  here  alluded  to,  a  Lizzie  Robins,  then  six  years  of 
a<re,  is  now  well  known  as  Elizabeth  Robins  Pennell,  and  "  a 

o     "  7 


270  MEMOIRS. 

writer  of  books,"  while  Edward  has  risen  in  journalism  in 
Philadelphia.  There  as  I  walked  often  eighteen  or  twenty 
miles  a  day  by  the  sea,  when  the  thermometer  was  from  90° 
to  100°  in  the  shade,  I  soon  worked  away  all  apprehension  of 
typhoid  and  developed  muscle.  One  day  I  overheard  a  man 
in  the  next  bathing-house  asking  who  I  was.  "  I  don't 
know,"  replied  the  other,  "  but  if  I  were  he,  Fd  go  in  for 
being  a  prize-fighter." 

Everybody  was  poor  in  those  days,  so  we  went  to  a  very 
cheap  though  respectable  hotel,  where  we  paid  less  than  half 
of  what  we  had  always  given  at  "  The  Island,"  and  where  we 
were  in  company  quite  as  happy  or  comfortable  as  we  ever 
had  been  anywhere,  though  the  death  of  her  brother  weighed 
sadly  on  my  poor  wife,  and  her  dear  good  mother,  whom  I 
always  loved  tenderly,  and  with  whom  I  never  had  a  shade  of 
difference  of  opinion  nor  a  whisper  of  even  argument,  and  to 
whom  I  was  always  devoted.  I  seem  to  have  been  destined 
to  differ  from  other  mortals  in  a  few  things  :  one  was,  that  I 
always  loved  my  mother-in-law  with  whole  heart  and  soul, 
and  never  considered  our  menage  as  perfect  unless  she  were 
with  us.  She  was  of  very  good  and  rather  near  English 
descent,  a  Callender,  and  had  been  celebrated  in  her  youth 
for  extraordinary  beauty.  Her  husband  was  related  to  the 
celebrated  beauty  Miss  Vining,  whom  Maria  Antoinette,  from 
the  fame  of  her  loveliness,  invited  to  come  and  join  her  court. 
At  the  beginning  of  this  century  no  great  foreigner  travelled 
in  America  without  calling  on  Miss  Vining  in  Delaware. 
There  is  a  life  of  her  in  Griswold's  "  Kepublican  Court."  It 
is  without  any  illustrative  portrait.  I  asked  Dr.  Griswold 
why  he  had  none.  He  replied  that  none  existed.  I  said  to 
him  severely,  "  Let  this  be  a  lesson  to  you  never  to  publish 
anything  without  submitting  it  first  to  me.  I  have  a  photo 
graph  of  her  miniature."  The  Doctor  submitted  ! 

This  summer  at  Cape  May  I  made  the  acquaintance  of  a 
very  remarkable  man  named  Solomon.  He  was  a  Jew,  and 
we  became  intimate.  One  evening  he  said  to  me  :  "  You 


LIFE  DURING  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  271 

know  so  much  about  the  Jews  that  I  have  even  learned  some 
thing  from  you  about  them.  But  I  can  teach  you  something. 
Can  you  tell  the  difference  between  the  Asclikenazim  and 
the  Sephardim  by  their  eyes  ?  No  !  Well,  now,  look ! "  Just 
then  a  Spanish-looking  beauty  from  New  Orleans  passed  by. 
"  There  is  Miss  Inez  Aguado ;  observe  that  the  corners  of 
her  eyes  are  long  with  a  peculiar  turn.  Wait  a  minute ;  now, 
there  is  Miss  Lowenthal  —  Levi,  of  course  —  of  Frankfort. 
Don't  you  see  the  difference  ?  " 

I  did,  and  asked  him  to  which  of  the  classes  he  belonged. 
He  replied — 

"  To  neither.  I  am  of  the  sect  of  the  ancient  Sadducees, 
who  took  no  part  in  the  Crucifixion." 

Then  I  replied,  "  You  are  of  the  Karaim" 

"  No ;  that  is  still  another  sect  or  division,  though  very 
ancient  indeed.  We  never  held  to  the  Halacha,  and  we  laugh 
at  the  Mishna  and  Talmud  and  all  that.  We  do  not  believe 
or  disbelieve  in  a  God — Yahveh,  or  the  older  Elohim.  We 
hold  that  every  man  born  knows  enough  to  do  what  is  right ; 
and  that  is  religion  enough.  After  death,  if  he  has  acted 
up  to  this,  he  will  be  all  right  should  there  be  a  future  of 
immortality ;  and  if  he  hasn't,  he  will  be  none  the  worse 
off  for  it.  We  are  a  very  small  sect.  We  call  ourselves 
the  Neu  Rcformirtc.  We  have  a  place  of  worship  in  New 
York." 

This  was  the  first  agnostic  whom  I  had  ever  met.  I 
thought  of  the  woman  in  Jerusalem  who  ran  about  with  the 
torch  to  burn  up  heaven  and  the  water  to  extinguish  hell- 
fire.  Yes,  the  sect  was  very  old.  The  Sadducees  never 
denied  anything ;  they  only  inquired  as  to  truth.  Seek  or 
Sikh  ! 

I  confess  that  Mr.  Solomon  somewhat  weakened  the  effect 
of  his  grand  free-thought  philosophy  by  telling  me  in  full 
faith  of  a  Eabbi  in  New  York  who  was  so  learned  in  the 
Cabala  that  by  virtue  of  the  sacred  names  he  could  recover 
stolen  goods.  Whether,  like  Browning's  sage,  he  also  received 


272  MEMOIRS. 

them,  I  did  not  learn.  But  c'est  tout  comme  chez  nous  autres. 
The  same  spirit  which  induces  a  man  to  break  out  of  or 
thodox  humdrumness,  induces  him  to  love  the  marvellous, 
the  forbidden,  the  odd,  the  wild,  the  droll — even  as  I  do.  It 
is  not  a  fair  saying  that  "  atheists  are  all  superstitious,  which 
proves  that  a  man  must  believe  in  something."  No;  it  is  the 
spirit  of  nature,  of  inquiry,  of  a  desire  for  the  new  and  to 
penetrate  the  unknown;  and  under  such  influence  a  man 
may  truly  be  an  atheist  as  regards  what  he  cannot  prove  or 
reconcile  with  universal  love  and  mercy,  and  yet  a  full  be 
liever  that  magic  and  ghosts  may  possibly  exist  among  the 
infinite  marvels  and  mysteries  of  nature.  It  is  admitted  that 
a  man  may  believe  in  God  without  being  superstitious;  it  is 
much  truer  that  he  may  be  "  superstitious "  (whatever  that 
means)  without  believing  that  there  is  an  anthropomorphic 
bon  Dieu.  However  this  may  be,  Mr.  Solomon  made  me  re 
flect  often  and  deeply  for  many  a  long  year,  until  I  arrived 
to  the  age  of  Darwin. 

I  also  made  at  Cape  May  the  acquaintance  of  a  very  re 
markable  man,  whom  I  was  destined  to  often  meet  in  other 
lands  in  after  years.  This  was  Carrol  (not  as  yet  General) 
Tevis.  We  first  met  thus.  The  ladies  wanted  seats  out  on 
the  lawn,  and  there  was  not  a  chair  to  be  had.  He  and  I 
were  seeking  in  the  hotel-office ;  all  the  clerks  were  absent, 
and  all  the  chairs  removed ;  but  there  remained  a  solid  iron 
sofa  or  settee,  six  feet  long,  weighing  about  600  pounds. 
Tevis  was  strong,  and  a  great  fencer ;  there  is  a  famous  lotto 
which  he  invented,  bearing  his  name;  perhaps  Walter  II. 
Pollock  knows  it.  I  gave  the  free-lance  or  condottiero  a 
glance,  and  proposed  to  prig  the  iron  sofa  and  lay  waste  the 
enemy.  It  was  a  deed  after  his  Dugald  Dalgetty  heart,  and 
we  carried  it  off  and  seated  the  ladies. 

In  the  autumn  there  was  a  vast  Sanitary  Fair  for  the 
benefit  of  the  army  hospitals  held  in  Philadelphia.  I  edited 
for  it  a  daily  newspaper  called  Our  Daily  Fare,  which  often 
kept  me  at  work  for  eighteen  hours  per  diem,  and  in  doing 


LIFE  DURING  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  273 

which  I  was  subjected  to  much  needless  annoyance  and 
mortification.  At  this  Fair  I  saw  Abraham  Lincoln. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  the  remarkable  oil  fever,  or 
mania  for  speculating  in  oil-lands,  broke  out  in  the  United 
States.  Many  persons  had  grown  rich  during  the  war,  and 
were  ready  to  speculate.  Its  extent  among  all  classes  was 
incredible.  Perhaps  the  only  parallel  to  it  in  history  was  the 
Mississippi  Bubble  or  the  South  Sea  speculations,  and  these 
did  not  collectively  employ  so  much  capital  or  call  out  so 
much  money  as  this  petroleum  mania.  It  had  many  strange 
social  developments,  which  I  was  destined  to  see  in  minute 
detail. 

My  first  experience  was  not  very  pleasant.  A  publisher 
in  New  York  asked  me  to  write  him  a  humorous  poem  on 
the  oil  mania.  It  was  to  be  large  enough  to  make  a  small 
volume.  I  did  so,  and  in  my  opinion  wrote  a  good  one.  It 
cost  me  much  time  and  trouble.  When  it  was  done,  the 
publisher  refused  to  take  it,  saying  that  it  was  not  what  he 
wanted.  So  I  lost  my  labour  or  oleum  perdidi. 

I  had  two  young  friends  named  Colton,  who  had  been  in 
the  war  from  the  beginning  to  the  end,  and  experienced  its 
changes  to  the  utmost.  Neither  was  over  twenty-one.  Wil 
liam  Colton,  the  elder,  was  a  captain  in  the  regular  cavalry, 
and  the  younger,  Baldwin,  was  his  orderly.  It  was  a  man  in 
the  Captain's  company,  named  Yost,  who  furnished  the  type 
of  Hans  Breitmann  as  a  soldier.  The  brothers  told  me  that 
one  day  in  a  march  in  Tennessee,  not  far  from  Murfrees- 
boro',  they  had  found  petroleum  in  the  road,  and  thought  it 
indicated  the  presence  of  oil-springs.  I  mentioned  this  to  Mr. 
Joseph  Lea,  a  merchant  of  Philadelphia.  He  was  the  father 
of  Mrs.  Anna  Lea  Merritt,  who  has  since  become  a  very  dis 
tinguished  artist,  well  known  in  England,  being  the  first 
lady  painter  from  whom  the  British  Government  ever  bought 
a  picture.  Mr.  Lea  thought  it  might  be  worth  some  expense 
to  investigate  this  Tennessee  oil.  I  volunteered  to  go,  if  my 
expenses  were  paid,  and  it  was  agreed  to.  It  is  difficult  at 


274  MEMOIRS. 

the  present  day  to  give  any  reader  a  clear  idea  of  the  dangers 
and  trouble  which  this  undertaking  involved,  and  I  was  fully 
aware  beforehand  what  they  would  be.  The  place  was  on 
the  border,  in  the  most  disorganised  state  of  society  conceiv 
able,  and,  in  fact,  completely  swarming  with  guerillas  or 
brigands,  sans  merci,  who  simply  killed  and  stripped  every 
body  who  fell  into  their  hands.  All  over  our  border  or 
frontier  there  are  innumerable  families  who  have  kept  up 
feuds  to  the  death,  or  vendettas,  in  some  cases  for  more  than 
a  century ;  and  now,  in  the  absence  of  all  civil  law,  these 
were  engaged  in  wreaking  their  old  grudges  without  restraint, 
and  assuredly  not  sparing  any  stranger  who  came  between 
them. 

I  had  a  friend  in  C.  A.  Dana,  the  Assistant-Secretary  of 
"War,  and  another  in  Colonel  Henry  Olcott,  since  known  as 
the  theosophist.  The  latter  had  just  come  from  the  country 
which  I  proposed  to  visit.  I  asked  him  to  aid  me  in  getting 
military  passes  and  introductions  to  officers  in  command. 
He  promised  to  do  so,  saying  that  he  would  not  go  through 
what  I  had  before  me  for  all  the  oil  in  America.*  And,  in 
deed,  one  could  not  take  up  a  newspaper  without  finding  full 
proof  that  Tennessee  was  at  that  time  an  inferno  or  No-man's 
Land  of  disorder. 

I  went  to  it  with  my  eyes  wide  open.  After  so  many 
years  of  work,  I  was  as  poor  as  ever,  and  the  seven  years  -of 
harvest  which  I  had  prophesied  had  come,  and  I  was  not 
gathering  a  single  golden  grain.  My  father  regarded  me  as 

*  Apropos  of  Olcott  he  did  good  and  noble  work  in  the  war,  in  the 
field,  and  also  out  of  it  as  a  Government  detective,  and  I  am  very  far 
from  being  ashamed  to  say  that  I  aided  him  more  than  once  in  the 
latter  capacity.  There  was  a  lady  in  Philadelphia  who  availed  herself 
of  a  distinguished  position  in  society  so  as  to  go  and  come  from  Rich 
mond  and  act  as  spy  and  carry  letters  between  rebel  agents.  I  knew 
this  and  told  Olcott  of  it,  who  put  a  stop  to  her  treason.  I  also 
learned  that  a  rascally  contractor  had  defraiided  Government  with 
adulterated  chemicals.  Olcott  had  him  heavily  fined. 


LIFE  DURING  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  275 

a  failure  iu  life,  or  as  a  literary  ne'er-do-weel,  destined  never 
to  achieve  fortune  or  gain  an  etat,  and  he  was  quite  right. 
My  Avar  experience  had  made  me  reckless  of  life,  and  specu 
lation  was  firing  every  heart.  I  bought  myself  a  pair  of 
long,  strong,  overall  boots  and  blanket,  borrowed  a  revolver, 
arranged  money  affairs  with  Mr.  Lea,  who  always  acted  with 
the  greatest  generosity,  intelligence,  and  kindness,  packed 
my  carpet-bag,  and  departed.  It  was  midwinter,  and  I  was 
destined  for  a  wintry  region,  or  Venango  County,  where,  un 
til  within  the  past  few  months,  there  had  been  many  more 
bears  and  deer  than  human  beings.  For  it  was  in  Venango, 
Pennsylvania,  that  the  oil-wells  were  situated,  and  Mr.  Lea 
judged  it  advisable  that  I  should  first  visit  them  and  learn 
something  of  the  method  of  working,  the  geology  of  the  re 
gion,  and  other  practical  matters. 

My  brother  accompanied  me  to  the  station,  and  I  left  at 
about  8  P.  M.  After  a  long,  long,  weary  night  and  day,  I 
arrived  at  an  oil  town,  whose  name  I  now  forget.  By  great 
good  fortune  I  secured  a  room,  and  by  still  greater  luck  I 
got  acquainted  the  next  morning  at  breakfast  with  three  or 
four  genial  and  gentlemanly  men,  all  "  speculators  "  like  my 
self,  who  had  come  to  spy  into  the  plumpness  and  oiliness  of 
the  land.  "We  hired  a  sleigh  and  went  forth  on  an  excursion 
among  the  oil-wells.  It  was  in  some  respects  the  most  re 
markable  day  I  ever  spent  anywhere. 

For  here  was  oil,  oil,  oil  everywhere,  in  fountains  flowing 
at  the  rate  of  a  dollar  a  second  (it  brought  70  cents  a  gallon), 
derricks  or  scaffoldings  at  every  turn  over  wells,  men  making 
fortunes  in  an  hour,  and  beggars  riding  on  blooded  horses. 
I  myself  saw  a  man  in  a  blue  carter's  blouse,  carrying  a 
black  snake- whip,  and  since  breakfast,  for  selling  a  friend's 
farm,  he  had  received  8250,000  as  commission  (i.  e.,  £50,000). 
When  we  stopped  to  dine  at  a  tavern,  there  stood  behind  us 
during  all  the  meal  many  country-fellows,  all  trying  to  sell 
oil-lands ;  every  one  had  a  great  bargain  at  from  thirty  or 
forty  thousand  dollars  downwards.  The  lowest  in  the  lot  was 


276  MEMOIRS. 

a  boy  of  seventeen  or  eighteen,  a  loutish-looking  youth,  who 
looked  as  if  his  vocation  had  been  peddling  apples  and  loz 
enges.  He  had  only  a  small  estate  to  dispose  of  for  $15,000 
(£3,000),  but  he  was  very  small  fry  indeed.  My  companions 
met  with  many  friends ;  all  had  within  a  few  days  or  hours 
made  or  lost  incredible  sums  by  gambling  in  oil-lands,  bor 
rowing  recklessly,  and  failing  as  recklessly.  Companies  were 
formed  here  on  the  spot  as  easily  as  men  get  up  a  game  of 
cards,  and  of  this  within  a  few  days  I  witnessed  many  in 
stances.  Two  men  would  meet.  "Got  any  land  over?" 
(i.  e.,  not  "  stocked  ").  "  Yes,  first-rate ;  geologer's  certifi 
cate  ;  can  you  put  it  on  the  market  ?  "  "  That's  my  business. 
I've  floated  forty  oil  stocks  already,  terms  half  profits."  So 
it  would  be  floated  forthwith.  Gambling  by  millions  was  in 
the  air  everywhere ;  low  common  men  held  sometimes  thirty 
companies,  all  their  own,  in  one  pocket,  to  be  presently 
sprung  in  New  York  or  elsewhere.  And  in  contrast  to  it 
was  the  utterly  bleak  wretchedness  and  poverty  of  every 
house,  and  the  miserable  shanties,  and  all  around  and  afar 
the  dismal,  dark,  pine  forests  covered  with  snow. 

I  heard  that  day  of  a  man  who  got  a  living  by  spiritually 
intuiting  oil.  "Something  told  him,"  some  Socratic  demon 
or  inner  impulse,  that  there  was  "  ile  "  here  or  there,  deep 
under  the  earth.  To  pilot  to  this  "  ile  "  of  beauty  he  was 
paid  high  fees.  One  of  my  new  friends  avowed  his  intention 
of  at  once  employing  this  oil-seer  as  over-seer. 

We  came  to  some  stupendous  tanks  and  to  a  well  which, 
as  one  of  my  friends  said  enviously  and  longingly,  was  run 
ning  three  thousand  dollars  a  day  in  clear  greenbacks.  Its 
history  was  remarkable.  For  a  very  long  time  an  engineer 
had  been  here,  employed  by  a  company  in  boring,  but  bore 
he  never  so  wisely,  he  could  get  nothing.  At  last  the  com 
pany,  tired  of  the  expenditure  and  no  returns,  wrote  to  him 
ordering  him  to  cease  all  further  work  on  the  next  Saturday. 
But  the  engineer  had  become  "  possessed  "  with  the  idea  that 
he  must  succeed,  and  so,  unheeding  orders,  he  bored  away 


LIFE  DURING  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  277 

all  alone  the  next  day.  About  sunset  some  one  going  by 
heard  a  loud  screaming  and  hurrahing.  Hastening  up,  he 
found  the  engineer  almost  delirious  with  joy,  dancing  like  a 
lunatic  round  a  fountain  of  oil,  which  was  "  as  thick  as  a 
flour-barrel,  and  rising  to  the  height  of  a  hundred  feet."  It 
was  speedily  plugged  and  made  available.  All  of  this  oc 
curred  only  a  very  few  days  before  I  saw  it. 

That  night  I  stopped  at  a  newly-erected  tavern,  and,  as  no 
bed  was  to  be  had,  made  up  my  mind  to  sleep  in  my  blanket 
on  the  muddy  floor,  surrounded  by  a  crowd  of  noisy  specula 
tors,  waggoners,  and  the  like.  I  tell  this  tale  vilely,  for 
I  omitted  to  say  that  I  did  the  same  thing  the  first  night 
when  I  entered  the  oil-country,  got  a  bed  on  the  second,  and 
that  this  was  the  third.  But  even  here  I  made  the  acquaint 
ance  of  a  nice  Scotchman,  who  found  out  another  very  nice 
man  who  had  a  house  near  by,  and  who,  albeit  not  accus 
tomed  to  receive  guests,  said  he  would  give  us  two  one  bed, 
which  he  did.  However,  the  covering  was  not  abundant,  and 
I,  for  all  my  blanket,  was  a-cold.  In  the  morning  I  found  a 
full  supply  of  blankets  hanging  over  the  foot-board,  but  we 
had  retired  without  a  light,  and  had  not  noticed  them.  Our 
breakfast  being  rather  poor,  our  host,  with  an  apology, 
brought  in  a  great  cold  mince-pie  three  inches  thick,  which 
is  just  the  thing  which  I  love  best  of  all  earthly  food.  That 
he  apologised  for  it  indicated  a  very  high  degree  of  culture 
indeed  in  rural  America,  and,  in  fact,  I  found  that  he  was  a 
well-read  and  modest  man. 

It  was,  I  think,  at  a  place  called  Plummer  that  I  made 

the  acquaintance  of  two  brothers  named  B ,  who  seemed 

to  vibrate  on  the  summit  of  fortune  as  two  golden  balls  might 
on  the  top  of  the  oil-fountain  to  which  I  referred.  One 
spoke  casually  of  having  at  that  instant  a  charter  for  a  bank 
in  one  pocket,  and  one  for  a  railroad  in  the  other.  They 
bought  and  sold  any  and  all  kinds  of  oil-land  in  any  quantity, 
without  giving  it  a  thought.  While  I  was  in  their  office, 

one  man  exhibited  a  very  handsome  revolver.     "  How  much 
13 


278  MEMOIRS. 

did  it  cost?"  asked  B.  "  Fifty  dollars"  (£10).  "  I  wish," 
replied  B.,  "  that  when  you  go  to  Philadelphia  you'd  get  me 
a  dozen  of  them  for  presents."  A  man  came  to  the  window 
and  called  for  him.  "What  do  you  want?"  "Here  are 
the  two  horses  I  spoke  about  yesterday."  Hardly  heeding 
him,  and  talking  to  others,  B.  went  to  the  window,  cast 
a  casual  glance  at  the  steeds,  and  said,  "  What  was  it  you 
said  that  you  wanted  for  them  ? "  "  Three  thousand  dol 
lars."  "  All  right !  go  and  put  'em  in  the  stable,  and  come 
here  and  get  the  money." 

From  Plummer  I  had  to  go  ten  miles  to  Oil  City.  If  I 
had  only  known  it,  one  of  my  very  new  friends,  who  was 
very  kind  indeed  to  a  stranger,  would  have  driven  me  over  in 
his  sleigh.  But  I  did  not  know  it,  and  so  paid  a  very  rough 
countryman  ten  dollars  (£2)  to  take  me  over  on  a  jumper. 
This  is  the  roughest  form  of  a  sledge,  consisting  of  two  sap 
lings  with  the  ends  turned  up,  fastened  by  cross-pieces.  The 
snow  on  the  road  was  two  feet  deep,  and  the  thermometer  at 
zero.  But  the  driver  had  two  good  horses,  and  made  good 
time.  I  found  it  very  difficult  indeed  to  hold  on  to  the 
vehicle  and  also  to  keep  my  carpet-bag.  Meanwhile  my 
driver  entertained  me  with  an  account  of  a  great  misfor 
tune  which  had  just  befallen  him.  It  was  as  follows : — 

"  Before  this  here  oil-fever  came  along  I  had  a  little 
farm  that  cost  me  $150,  and  oiT  that,  an'  workin'  at  car- 
pentrin',  I  got  a  mighty  slim  livin'.  I  used  to  keep  all  my 
main  savin's  to  pay  taxes,  and  often  had  to  save  up  the 
cents  to  get  a  prospective  drink  of  whisky.  Well,  last 
week  I  sold  my  farm  for  forty  thousand  dollars,  and  dern 
my  skin  ef  the  feller  that  bought  it  didn't  go  and  sell  it 
yesterday  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand !  Just  like  my 
derned  bad  luck ! " 

"  See  here,  my  friend,"  I  said  ;  "  I  have  travelled  pretty 
far  in  my  time,  but  I  never  saw  a  country  in  which  a  man 
with  forty  thousand  dollars  was  not  considered  rich." 

"  He  may  be  rich  anywhere  else  with  it,"  replied  the 


LIFE  DURING  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  279 

nouveau  riche  contemptuously,  "but  it  wouldn't  do  more 
than  buy  him  a  glass  of  whisky  here  in  Plummer." 

Having  learned  what  I  could  of  oil-boring,  I  went  to  Cin 
cinnati,  and  then  to  Nashville  by  rail.  It  may  give  the  read 
er  some  idea  of  what  kind  of  a  country  and  life  I  was  com 
ing  into  when  I  tell  him  that  the  train  which  preceded  mine 
had  been  stopped  by  the  guerillas,  who  took  from  it  fifty 
Federal  soldiers  and  shot  them  dead,  stripping  the  other  pas 
sengers  ;  and  that  the  one  which  came  after  had  a  hundred 
and  fifty  bullets  fired  into  it,  but  had  not  been  stopped. 
We  passed  by  Mammoth  Cave,  but  at  full  speed,  for  it 
was  held  by  the  brigands.  All  of  which  things  were  duly 
chronicled  in  the  Northern  newspapers,  and  read  by  all  at 
home. 

I  got  to  Nashville.  It  had  very  recently  been  taken  by 
the  Federal  forces  under  General  Thomas,  who  had  put  it 
under  charge  of  General  Whipple,  who  was,  in  fact,  the  rul 
ing  or  administrative  man  of  the  Southwest  just  then.  I 
went  to  the  hotel.  Everything  was  dismal  and  dirty — noth 
ing  but  soldiers  and  officers,  with  all  the  marks  of  the  field 
and  of  warfare  visible  on  them — citizens  invisible — every 
thing  proclaiming  a  city  camp  in  time  of  war — sixty  thousand 
men  in  a  city  of  twenty  thousand,  more  or  less.  I  got  a 
room.  It  was  so  cold  that  night  that  the  ice  froze  two  inches 
thick  in  my  pitcher  in  my  room. 

I  expected  to  find  the  brothers  Colton  in  Nashville.  I 
went  to  the  proper  military  authority,  and  was  informed  that 
their  regiment  was  down  at  the  front  in  Alabama,  as  was  also 
the  officer  who  had  the  authority  to  give  them  leave  of  ab 
sence.  I  was  also  informed  that  my  only  chance  was  to  go  to 
Alabama,  or,  in  fact,  into  the  field  itself,  as  a  civilian  !  This 
was  a  dreary  prospect.  However,  I  made  up  my  mind  to  it, 
and  was  walking  along  the  street  in  a  very  sombre  state  of 
mind,  for  I  was  going  to  a  country  like  that  described  in 
"  Sir  Grey  Stele  "— 

"  Whiche  is  called  the  Land  of  Doubte." 


280  MEMOIRS. 

And  doubtful  indeed,  and  very  dismal  and  cold  and  old, 
did  everything  seem  on  that  winter  afternoon  as  I,  utterly 
alone,  went  my  way.  What  I  wanted  most  of  all  things  on 
earth  was  a  companion.  With  my  brother  I  would  have 
gone  down  to  the  front  and  to  face  all  chances  as  if  it  were 
to  a  picnic. 

When  ill-fortune  intends  to  make  a  spring,  she  draws 
back.  But  good  fortune,  God  bless  her !  does  just  the  same. 
Therefore  sifortuna  tonat,  caveto  mergi — if  fortune  frowns, 
do  not  for  that  despond.  Just  as  I  was  passing  a  very  re 
spectable-looking  mansion,  I  saw  a  sign  over  its  office-door 
bearing  the  words  :  "  Captain  Joseph  II.  Paxton,  Mustering- 
in  and  Disbursing  Officer." 

Joseph  E.  Paxton  was  a  very  intimate  friend  of  mine  in 
Philadelphia.  He  was  still  a  young  man,  and  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  whom  I  have  ever  known.  He  was  a  great 
scholar.  He  was  more  familiar  with  all  the  rariora,  cnriosa, 
and  singular  marvels  of  literature  than  any  body  I  ever  knew 
except  Octave  Delepierre,  with  whose  works  lie  first  made 
me  acquainted.  He  had  translated  Ik  Marvel's  "  Keveries 
of  a  Bachelor "  into  French,  and  had  been  accepted  by  a 
Paris  publisher.  He  had  been  a  lawyer,  an  agent  for  a  rail 
road,  and  had  long  edited  in  Philadelphia  a  curious  journal 
entitled  Bizarre,  and  written  a  work  on  gems.  His  whole 
soul,  however,  was  in  the  French  literature  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  and  he  always  had  a  library  which  would  make  a 
collector's  mouth  water.  Had  he  lived  in  London  or  Paris, 
he  would  have  made  a  great  reputation.  And  he  was  kind- 
hearted,  genial,  and  generous  to  a  fault.  He  had  always 
some  unfortunate  friend  living  on  him,  some  Bohemian  of 
literature  under  a  cloud. 

I  entered  the  office  and  found  him,  and  great  was  his 
amazement!  "  Que  (liable,  mon  ami,  faistu  id  dans  cctte 
galere  ?  "  was  his  greeting.  I  explained  the  circumstances  in 
detail.  He  at  once  exclaimed,  "  Come  and  live  here  with 
me.  General  Whipple  is  my  brother-in-law,  and  he  will  be 


LIFE  DURING  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  281 

here  in  a  few  days  and  live  with  us.  He'll  make  it  all  right." 
"  Here,  Jim  ! "  he  cried  to  a  great  six-foot  man  of  colour — 
"  run  round  to  the  hotel  and  bring  this  gentleman's  lug 
gage  ! " 

There  I  remained  for  a  very  eventful  month.  Paxton 
had  entered  with  the  conquerors,  and  had  just  seized  on  the 
house.  I  may  indeed  say  that  we  seized  on  it,  as  regards  any 
right — I  being  accepted  as  hail-fellow-well-met,  and  as  a  bird 
of  the  same  feather.  In  it  was  a  piano  and  a  very  good  old- 
fashioned  library.  It  was  like  Paxton  to  loot  a  library.  He 
had  had  his  pick  of  the  best  houses,  and  took  this  one, 
"  niggers  included,"  for  the  servants,  by  some  odd  freak, 
preferred  freedom  with  Paxton  to  slavery  with  their  late 
owner.  This  gentleman  was  a  Methodist  clergyman,  and 
Paxton  found  among  his  papers  proofs  that  he  had  been  con 
cerned  in  a  plot  to  burn  Cincinnati  by  means  of  a  gang  of 
secret  incendiaries. 

Whenever  the  blacks  realised  the  fact  that  a  Northern 
man  was  a  gentleman — they  all  have  marvellous  instincts  for 
this,  and  a  respect  for  one  beyond  belief — they  took  to  him 
with  a  love  like  that  of  bees  for  a  barrel  of  syrup.  I  have 
experienced  this  so  often,  and  in  many  cases  so  touchingly, 
that  I  cannot  refrain  from  recording  it.  Among  others  who 
thus  took  to  me  was  the  giant  Jim,  who  was  unto  Paxton 
and  me  as  the  captive  of  our  bow  and  spear,  albeit  an  eman 
cipated  contraband.  When  the  Southerners  defied  General 
Butler  to  touch  their  slaves,  because  they  were  their  "  prop 
erty  "  by  law,  the  General  replied  by  "  confiscating  "  the 
property  by  what  Germans  call  Faustreclit  (or  fist-right)  as 
"  contraband  of  war." 

This  Jim,  the  general  waiter  and  butler,  was  a  character, 
shrewd,  clever,  and  full  of  dry  humour.  When  I  was  alone 
in  the  drawing-room  of  an  evening,  he  would  pile  up  a  great 
wood-fire,  and,  as  I  sat  in  an  arm-chair,  would  sit  or  recline 
on  the  floor  by  the  blaze  and  tell  me  stories  of  his  slave  life, 
such  as  this  : — 


282  MEMOIRS. 

"  My  ole  missus  she  always  say  to  me,  '  Jim,  don'  you 
ever  have  anything  to  do  with  dem  Yankees.  Dey're  all 
pore  miserable  wile  wretches.  Dey  lib  in  poverty  an'  nasti- 
ness  and  don'  know  nothin'.'  I  says  to  her,  '  It's  mighty 
quare,  missus.  I  can't  understan'  it.  Whar  do  all  dem 
books  come  from?  Master  gits  em  from  de  Norf.  Who 
makes  all  our  boots  an'  clothes  and  sends  us  tea  an'  every- 
thin'  ?  Dey  can't  all  be  so  pore  an'  ignoran'  ef  dey  writes 
our  books  an'  makes  every  thin'  we  git.'  'Jim,'  she  says, 
'  you're  a  fool,  an'  don'  understau'  nothin'.'  '  "Wery  good, 
missus,'  says  I,  but  I  thinked  it  over.  All  we  do  is  to  raise 
cotton,  an'  dey  make  it  into  cloff,  which  we  hav'n't  de  sense 
to  do." 

I  believe  that  I  give  this  word  for  word.  And  Jim,  as  I 
found,  was  a  leading  mind  among  the  blacks. 

I  had  a  letter  of  introduction  from  Mr.  Lea  to  Horace 
Harrison,  who  was  the  State  Attorney  for  Tennessee.  At 
this  time  his  power  was  very  great,  for  he  had  in  his  hands 
the  disposition  of  all  the  estates  of  all  the  rebels  in  Tennes 
see.  He  was  the  type  of  a  Southwestern  gentleman.  He 
reminded  me  very  much  of  my  old  Princeton  friends,  and 
when  I  was  in  his  office  smoking  a  pipe,  I  felt  as  if  I  were  in 
college  again.  I  liked  him  very  much.  One  morning  I 
called,  and  after  some  deliberation  he  said,  "  You  are  a 
lawyer,  are  you  not?"  I  replied  that  I  had  studied  law 
under  Judge  Cadwallader. 

"  Then  I  should  like  to  consult  with  you  as  a  lawyer.  I 
have  a  very  difficult  case  to  deal  with.  There  is  a  law  de 
claring  that  all  property  belonging  to  rebels  shall  be  seized 
and  held  for  one  year.  Now,  here  is  a  man  whose  estate  I 
have  held  for  six  months,  who  has  come  in  and  declared  his 
allegiance,  and  asks  for  his  lands.  And  I  believe  that  before 
long,  unless  he  comes  in  now,  they  will  be  almost  ruined. 
What  shall  I  do?" 

"  It  appears  to  me,"  I  replied,  "  that  if  the  disposal  of 
these  lands  is  in  your  hands,  you  must  be  supposed  to  exert 


LIFE  DURING  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  283 

some  will  and  discretion.  Stat  pro  rations  voluntas  is  a  good 
axiom  here.  We  are  not  at  all  in  slatu  quo  ante  bellum — in 
fact,  the  war  is  not  at  an  end,  nor  decided.  Your  duty  is  to 
act  for  the  good  of  the  country,  and  not  simply  to  skin  the 
enemy  like  a  bushwhacker,  but  to  pacify  the  people.  Victor 
volentes  per  populos  dat  jura — laws  should  always  be  mildly 
interpreted.  In  your  case,  considering  the  very  critical  con 
dition  of  the  country,  I  should  in  equity  give  the  man  his 
property,  and  take  his  oath  of  allegiance.  Severe  measures 
are  not  advisable — quod  est  violentum,  non  est  durabile." 

This  is,  I  believe,  pretty  accurately  what  I  said.  That 
evening,  as  I  was  sitting  Avith  General  Whipple,  he  amazed 
me  by  addressing  me  exactly  as  Mr.  Harrison  had  done  in 
the  morning. 

"  I  say,  Leland,  you're  a  lawyer,  and  I  want  your  advice. 
There  are  six  warehouses  here,  and  I  want  them  badly  for 
military  stores.  But  Horace  Harrison  says  that  I  can't  have 
them,  because  he  holds  them  for  the  United  States.  What 
am  I  to  do  ?  " 

"  General  Whipple,"  I  replied,  "  is  this  town  under  mili 
tary  occupation  in  time  of  war,  or  is  it  not  ?  " 

"  Most  decidedly  it  is." 

"  So  I  should  think  from  the  way  your  patrols  bother  me. 
And  if  such  is  the  case,  all  things  must  yield  to  military 
wants.  Where  we  have  no  legal  principles  or  courts  to  de 
cide,  we  must  fall  back  on  legal  axioms.  And  here  the  law 
is  clear  and  explicit,  for  it  says,  Inter  arma  leges  silent — the 
laws  are  suspended  in  warfare." 

"  A  magnificent  saying !  "  exclaimed  the  General  admir 
ingly.  "  Ah !  you  ought  to  be  in  the  Supreme  Court."  And 
seizing  a  pen  he  wrote  to  the  State  Attorney : — 

"  SIR  :  This  town,  being  but  recently  captured  from  the 
enemies  of  the  United  States,  is,  of  course,  under  military 
occupation,  which  renders  absolutely  necessary  for  military 
purpose  many  temporary  seizures  and  uses,  such  as  that  of 
the  six  warehouses  referred  to  in  our  late  correspondence. 


284  MEMOIRS. 

As  regards  legal  precedent  and  principle,  I  need  not  remind 
one  of  your  learning  that — (I  say,  Leland,  how  do  you  spell 
that  Latin? — I-n-t-e-r — yes,  I've  got  it) — Inter  anna  silent 
leges" 

I  am  afraid  that  Horace  Harrison,  when  he  got  that  let 
ter,  suspected  that  I  had  been  acting  as  counsel  for  both 
sides.  However,  as  I  took  no  fee,  my  conscience  was  at  rest. 
I  think  that  I  was  of  great  use  to  General  W hippie  at  that 
time,  and,  as  he  said  one  day,  an  unofficial  secretary.  Great 
and  serious  matters  passed  through  our  hands  (for  the  Gen 
eral  and  Harrison  were  taking  the  lead  in  virtually  reforming 
the  whole  frontier  or  debatable  land),  and  these  grand  affairs 
were  often  hurried  through  "  like  hot  cakes."  My  slender 
legal  attainments  were  several  times  in  requisition  on  occa 
sions  when  the  head  of  the  Supreme  Court  would  have  been 
a  more  appropriate  referee.  I  discovered,  however,  that  there 
was  really  a  department  of  law  in  which  I  might  have  done 
good  work.  Questions  of  very  serious  importance  were  often 
discussed  and  disposed  of  among  us  three  with  very  great 
economy  of  time  and  trouble.  And  here  I  may  say — "excuse 
the  idle  word  " — that  I  wonder  that  I  never  in  all  my  life  fell 
into  even  the  most  trifling  diplomatic  or  civil  position,  when, 
in  the  opinion  of  certain  eminent  friends,  I  possess  several 
qualifications  for  such  a  calling — that  is,  quickness  in  mas 
tering  the  legal  bearings  of  a  question,  a  knowledge  of  lan 
guages  and  countries,  readiness  in  drawing  up  papers,  and 
an  insatiable  love  of  labour,  which  latter  I  have  not  found  to 
be  always  possessed  by  the  accomplished  gentlemen  whom 
our  country  employs  abroad. 

I  may  here  narrate  a  curious  incident  which  touched  and 
gratified  me.  When  all  the  slaves  in  Xashville  were  set  free 
by  the  entrance  of  our  troops,  the  poor  souls,  to  manifest 
their  joy,  seized  a  church  (nobody  opposing),  and  for  three 
weeks  held  heavy  worship  for  twenty-four  hours  per  diem. 
But  not  a  white  soul  ivas  allowed  to  enter — the  real  and 
deeply-concealed  reason  being  that  Voodoo  rites  (which 


LIFE  DURING  THE  CIVIL  WAE.  285 

gained  great  headway  during  the  war)  formed  a  part  of  their 
devotion.  However,  I  was  informed  that  an  exception  would 
be  made  in  my  case,  and  that  I  was  free  to  enter.  And  why  ? 
Had  Jim  surmised,  by  that  marvellous  intuition  of  character 
which  blacks  possess,  that  I  had  in  me  "the  mystery"? 
Xow,  to-day  I  hold  and  possess  the  black  stone  of  the  Voo 
doo,  the  possession  of  which  of  itself  makes  me  a  grand-mas 
ter  and  initiate  or  adept,  and  such  an  invitation  would  seem 
as  natural  as  one  to  a  five-o'clock  tea  elsewhere ;  but  I  was 
not  known  to  any  one  in  Nashville  as  a  "  cunjerer,"  and  the 
incident  strikes  me  as  very  curious. 

Apropos  of  marvels,  many  of  the  blacks  can  produce  in 
their  throats  by  some  strange  process  sounds,  and  even  airs, 
resembling  those  of  the  harmonicon,  or  musical  box,  one  or 
the  other  or  both.  One  evening  in  Nashville,  in  a  lonely 
place,  I  heard  exquisite  music,  which  I  thought  must  be  that 
of  a  superior  hand-organ  from  afar.  But,  to  my  amazement, 
I  could  discover  none  ;  there  were  only  two  black  boys  in 
the  street.  Alexis  Paxton,  the  son  of  my  host,  explained  to 
me  that  what  I  heard  was  unquestionably  music  made  by 
those  ebony  flutes  of  boys,  and  that  there  were  some  wonder 
ful  performers  in  the  city.  I  have  listened  to  the  same 
music  at  a  public  exhibition.  I  greatly  wonder  that  I  have 
never  heard  of  this  kind  of  music  in  Europe  or  the  East.  It 
is  distinctly  instrumental,  not  vocal  in  its  tones.  It  has  the 
obvious  recommendation  of  economy,  since  by  means  of  it 
a  young  lady  could  be  performer  and  pianoforte  all  in  one, 
which  was  indeed  the  beginning  of  the  invention  in  Syrinx, 
who  was  made  into  a  pan-pipe,  which  as  a  piano  became  the 
great  musical  curse  (according  to  Heine)  of  modern  times, 
and  by  which,  as  I  conjecture,  the  fair  Miss  Reed  or  Syrinx 
revenges  herself  on  male  humanity.  By  the  way,  the  best 
singer  of  "Che  faro  senza  Euridice"  whom  I  ever  heard  was 
a  Miss  Reed,  a  sister  of  Mrs.  Paran  Stevens. 

I  had  a  very  pleasant  time  with  Paxton,  and  I  know  right 
well  that  I  was  no  burden  on  him,  but  a  welcome  friend. 


286  MEMOIRS. 

Au  reste,  there  was  plenty  of  room  in  the  house,  and  abun 
dant  army  stores  to  be  had  for  asking,  and  one  or  two  rare 
acquaintances.  One  of  these  was  a  Southern  officer,  now  a 
general,  who  had  come  over  to  our  side  and  fought,  as  the 
saying  was,  with  a  rope  round  his  neck.  He  was  terribly 
hated  by  the  rebels,  which  hate  he  returned  with  red-hot 
double  compound  interest — for  a  renegade  is  worse  than  ten 
Turks.  He  was  the  very  type  of  a  grim,  calm  old  Border 
moss-trooper.  He  lived  in  his  boots,  and  never  had  an  ounce 
of  luggage.  One  evening  General  Whipple  (always  humane 
and  cultivated,  though  as  firm  as  an  iron  bar)  said  to  him 
before  me,  "  I  really  don't  know  what  to  do  with  many  of 
my  rebel  prisoners.  They  dress  themselves  in  Federal  uni 
forms  for  want  of  other  clothes ;  they  take  them  from  the 
dead  on  the  battlefield,  and  try  to  pass  themselves  off  for 
Federals.  It  is  very  troublesome." 

"  No  trouble  to  me,"  replied  the  other. 

"  And  how  do  you  do  with  them  ?  " 

"  Shoot  them  as  spies.  Why,  only  last  week  I  got  four 
dozen  of  them,  and  in  less  than  four  minutes  I  had  them  all 
laid  out  stiff  in  the  road." 

The  reader  need  not  imagine  that  the  general  here  ro 
manced  or  exaggerated.  At  that  very  moment  the  massacres 
and  murders  which  were  going  on  within  three  miles  of  us 
were  beyond  belief.  The  bands  of  guerillas  or  bushwhackers 
which  swept  the  country  murdered  in  cold  blood  all  who  fell 
into  their  hands,  and  the  Confederate  soldiers  often  did  the 
same.  There  resulted,  of  course,  a  deadly  hatred  on  both 
sides,  and  the  most  unscrupulous  retaliation. 

I  could  fill  a  book  with  the  very  interesting  observations 
which  I  made  in  Nashville.  And  here  I  call  attention  to  a 
very  strange  coincidence  which  this  recalls.  During  the 
previous  year  I  had  often  expressed  a  great  desire  to  be  in 
some  State  during  its  transition  from  Confederacy  to  Union 
ism,  that  I  might  witness  the  remarkable  social  and  political 
paradoxes  and  events  which  would  result,  and  I  had  often 


LIFE  DURING  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  287 

specified  Tennessee  as  the  one  above  all  others  which  I  should 
prefer  to  visit  for  this  purpose.  And  I  had  about  as  much 
idea  that  I  should  go  to  the  moon  as  there.  But  prayers 
are  strangely  granted  at  strange  hours — plus  impetravi  quam 
fuissem  ausus — and  I  was  placed  in  the  very  centre  of  the 
wheel.  This  very  remarkable  fulfilment  of  a  Avish,  and  many 
like  it,  though  due  to  mere  chance,  naturally  made  an  im 
pression  on  me,  for  no  matter  how  strong  our  eyesight  may 
be,  or  our  sense  of  truth,  we  are  all  dazed  when  coming  out 
of  darkness  into  light,  and  all  the  world  is  in  that  condition 
now.  Xo  matter  how  completely  we  exchange  the  gloom  of 
supernaturalism  for  the  sunlight  of  science,  phantoms  still 
seem  to  flit  before  our  eyes,  and,  Avhat  is  more  bewildering 
still,  we  do  not  as  yet  know  but  what  these  phantoms  may  be 
physical  facts.  Perhaps  the  Voodoo  stone  may  have  the 
power  to  awaken  the  faith  which  may  move  the  vital  or  nerv 
ous  force,  which  may  act  on  hidden  subtler  forms  of  elec 
tricity  and  matter,  atoms  and  molecules.  Ah  !  we  have  a 
great  deal  to  learn  ! 

Through  General  "Whipple's  kind  aid  the  brothers  Colton 
were  at  once  brought  up  from  the  front.  With  them  and 
Captain  Paxton  we  went  to  Murfreesboro,  and  at  once  called 
on  the  general  in  command,  whose  name  I  have  forgotten. 
He  struck  me  as  a  grim,  brave  old  commander,  every  inch 
a  soldier.  While  we  conversed  with  him  a  sergeant  entered, 
a  man  who  looked  as  if  he  lived  in  the  saddle,  and  briefly 
reported  that  a  gang  of  guerillas  were  assembled  at  a  certain 
place  some  miles  away — I  forget  how  far,  but  the  distance 
was  traversed  in  an  incredibly  short  time.  The  general  issued 
orders  for  a  hundred  cavalry  to  go  at  once  and  "  get  "  them. 
They  "  got  "  them,  killing  many,  and  the  next  morning,  on 
looking  from  my  window,  I  saw  the  victors  ride  into  the 
courtyard,  many  of  them  with  their  captives  tied  neck  and 
heels,  like  bags  of  corn,  over  the  cruppers  of  the  horses.  A 
nice  night's  ride  they  must  have  had !  But  the  choice  was 
between  death  and  being  cruppered,  and  they  preferred  the 


288  MEMOIRS. 

latter  to  coming  a  cropper.  Strange  that  the  less  a  man  has 
to  live  for  the  more  he  clings  to  life. 

The  general  thought  that  if  he  gave  us  a  corporal  and 
four  men,  and  if  we  were  well  armed,  that  we  might  go  out 
on  the  Bole  Jack  road  and  return  unharmed, "  unless  we  met 
with  any  of  the  great  gangs  of  bushwhackers."  But  he 
evidently  thought,  as  did  General  Whipple,  who  did  not  heed 
a  trifle  by  any  means,  that  we  were  going  into  the  lion's  jaws. 
So  the  next  morning,  equo  iter  ingredi,  I  rode  forth.  I  had 
some  time  before  been  appointed  aide-de-camp  to  Governor 
Pollock,  of  Pennsylvania,  with  the  rank  of  colonel,  and  had 
now  two  captains  and  a  corporal  with  his  guard.  It  was  a 
rather  small  regiment. 

We  heard  grim  stories  that  morning  as  to  what  had  taken 
place  all  around  us  within  almost  a  few  hours.  Three 
Federal  pickets  had  been  treacherously  shot  while  on  guard 
the  night  before  ;  the  troops  had  surprised  a  gang  of  bush 
whackers  holding  a  ball,  and  firing  through  the  windows, 
dropped  ten  of  them  dead  while  dancing  ;  two  men  had  been 

murdered  by and  his  gang.  This  was  a  noted 

guerilla,  who  was  said  to  have  gone  south  with  the  Confed 
erate  army,  but  who  was  more  generally  believed  to  have  re 
mained  in  hiding,  and  to  have  committed  most  of  the  worst 
outrages  and  murders  of  late. 

At  the  first  house  where  we  stopped  in  the  woods  there 
lay  a  wounded  man,  one  of  the  victims  of  the  dance  the  night 
before.  The  inmates  were  silent,  but  not  rude  to  us.  I 
offered  a  man  whisky,  but  he  replied,  "  I  don't  use  it."  We 
rode  on.  Once  there  was  an  alarm  of  "  bushwhackers."  I 
should  have  forgotten  it  but  for  the  memory  of  the  look  of 
Baldwin  Colton's  eyes,  the  delighted  earnestness  of  a  man  or 
of  a  wild  creature  going  to  fight.  He  and  his  brother  had 
hunted  and  fought  guerillas  a  hundred  times,  perhaps  much 
oftener,  for  it  was  a  regular  daily  service  at  the  front.  Once 
during  a  retreat,  Baldwin  (eighteen  or  nineteen  years  of  age) 
fell  out  of  rank  so  often  to  engage  in  hand-to-hand  sword 


LIFE  DURING  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  289 

conflicts  with  rebel  cavalrymen,  that  his  brother  detached 
four  to  take  him  prisoner  and  keep  him  safe.  Daring  spirits 
among  our  soldiers  often  became  very  fond  of  this  kind  of 
duelling,  in  which  the  rebs  were  not  a  whit  behind  them,  and 
two  of  the  infantry  on  either  side  would,  under  cover  of  the 
bushes,  aim  and  pop  away  at  one  another  perhaps  for  hours, 
like  two  red  Indians. 

I  have  forgotten  whether  it  was  with  extra  whisky,  coffee, 
or  money  that  we  specially  gratified  our  corporal  and  guard  ; 
but  Baldwin,  who  was  "  one  of  'em,"  informed  me  that  they 
enjoyed  this  little  outing  immensely,  just  like  a  picnic,  and 
had  a  good  time.  From  which  it  may  be  inferred  that  men's 
ideas  of  enjoyment  are  extremely  relative.  It  could  not  have 
been  in  the  dodging  of  guerillas — to  that  they  were  accus 
tomed  ;  perhaps  it  was  the  little  extra  ration,  or  the  mystery 
of  the  excursion,  for  they  were  much  puzzled  to  know  what 
I  wanted,  why  I  examined  the  road  and  rocks,  and  all  so 
strangely,  and  went  into  the  very  worst  place  in  all  the  land 
to  do  so.  Baldwin  Colton  himself  had  been  so  knocked 
about  during  the  war,  and  so  starved  as  a  prisoner  in  South 
ern  hands,  that  he  looked  back  on  a  sojourn  in  that  ergastu- 
lum,  Libby  Prison,  as  rather  an  oasis  in  his  sad  experiences. 
"  It  wasn't  so  bad  a  place  as  some,  and  there  was  good  com 
pany,  and  always  something  to  eat"  The  optimist  of  Can- 
dide  was  a  Mallock  in  mourning  compared  to  this. 

That  night  we  came  to  somebody's  plantation.  I  forget 
his  name,  but  he  was  a  Union  man,  probably  a  very  recent 
acquisition,  but  genial.  He  had  read  the  Knickerbocker ',  and 
knew  my  name  well,  and  took  good  care  of  us.  In  the 
morning  I  offered  him  ten  dollars  for  our  night's  lodging, 
which  was,  in  the  opinion  of  my  two  captains,  stupendously 
liberal,  as  soldiers  never  paid.  Our  host  declined  it  like  a 
Southern  planter,  on  the  ground  that  he  never  sold  his  hos 
pitality.  So  I  put  the  money  into  the  hand  of  one  of  his 
pretty  children  as  a  present.  But  as  we  rode  forth  we  were 
called  back,  and  reminded  that  we  had  forgotten  to  pay  for 


290  MEMOIRS. 

the  soldiers  !  I  gave  another  five-dollar  greenback  and  rode 
away  disgusted.  And  at  the  gate  a  negro  girl  begged  us  to 
give  her  a  "  dalla "  (dollar)  to  buy  a  fish-line.  It  all  came 
from  my  foolish  offer  to  pay.  Gratitude  is  a  sense  of  further 
benefits  to  be  bestowed. 

The  place  where  the  oil  had  been  seen  was  near  a  conical 
rocky  hill  called  Grindstone  Knob.  We  examined  carefully 
and  found  no  trace  of  it.  The  geology  of  the  country  was 
unfavourable,  much  flint  and  conglomerate,  if  I  remember, 
and  wanting  in  the  signs  of  coal,  shales,  &c.,  and  "  faults " 
or  ravines.  I  may  be  quite  wrong,  but  such  was  my  opinion. 
No  one  who  lived  thereabout  had  ever  heard  of  "  ile."  Once 
I  asked  a  rustic  if  any  kind  of  oil  was  found  in  the  neigh 
bourhood  in  springs.  His  reply  was,  "  What !  ile  come  up 

outer  the  ground  like  water !  H !  I  never  heard  of  sitch 

a  thing."  There  was  no  oil. 

At  the  foot  of  Grindstone  Knob  was  a  rather  neat,  small 
house,  white,  with  green  blinds.  We  were  somewhat  aston 
ished  to  learn  from  a  negro  boy,  who  spoke  the  most  astonish 
ingly  bad  English,  that  this  was  the  home  of  Mas' . 

Yes,  this  was  the  den  of  the  wolf  himself,  and  I  had  no 
doubt  that  he  was  not  far  off.  There  was  a  small  cotton 
plantation  round  about. 

We  entered,  and  were  received  by  a  good-looking,  not 
unladylike,  but  rather  fierce-eyed  young  woman  and  her 

younger  sister.  It  was  Mrs. .  The  two  had  been  to  a 

lady's  seminary  in  Nashville,  and  played  the  piano  for  us.  I 
felt  that  we  were  in  a  strange  situation,  and  now  and  then 
walked  to  the  window  and  looked  out,  listening  all  the  time 
suspiciously  to  every  sound.  It  was  easy  enough  for  Mrs. 

,  the  brigand's  Avife,  to  perceive  from  my  untanned 

complexion  that  I  had  not  been  in  the  field,  and  was  mani 
festly  no  soldier.  "You  look  like  an  officer,"  she  said  to 
Captain  Colton,  "  and  so  does  that  one,  but  what  is  he  ?  " 
meaning  me  by  this  last.  We  had  dinner — roast  kid — and 
when  we  departed  I  gave  the  dame  five  dollars,  having 


LIFE  DURING  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  291 

the  feeling  that  I  could  not  be  indebted  to  thieves  for  a 
dinner. 

We  had  gone  but  a  little  distance  when  we  saw  two  bush 
whackers  with  guns,  and  gave  chase,  but  they  disappeared  in 
the  bushes,  much  to  the  grief  of  our  men,  who  would  have 
liked  either  to  shoot  them  or  to  bring  them  in.  Then  the 
corporal  told  us  that  while  we  were  at  dinner 's  "  faith 
ful  blacks  "  had  informed  his  men  that  "  Mas' had  been 

at  home  ever  since  Crismas " ;  that  at  eleven  o'clock  every 
night  they  assembled  at  the  house  and  thence  went  out  ma 
rauding  and  murdering. 

I  paused,  astonished  and  angry.  It  was  almost  certain 
that  the  bushwhacker  had  been  during  dinner  probably  in 
the  cellar  under  our  feet.  The  guerillas  had  great  fear  of 
our  regular  soldiers  ;  two  of  the  latter  were  a  match  at  any 
time  for  half-a-dozen  of  the  former,  as  was  proved  continually. 

Should  I  go  back  and  hang up  over  his  own  door  ?  I 

was  dying  to  do  it,  but  we  had  before  us  a  very  long  ride 
through  the  Cedar  Barrens,  the  sun  was  sinking  in  the  west, 
and  we  had  heard  news  which  made  it  extremely  likely  that 
a  large  band  of  guerillas  would  be  in  the  way. 

That  resolve  to  go  actually  saved  our  lives,  for  I  heard 
the  next  day  that  a  hundred  and  fifty  of  these  free  murderers 
had  gone  on  our  road  just  after  us.  This  fact  was  at  once 

transferred  to  the  Northern  newspapers,  that  "  on  a 

hundred  and  fifty  bushwhackers  passed  over  the  Bole  Jack 
road."  Which  was  read  by  my  wife  and  father,  who  knew 
that  on  that  very  day  I  was  on  that  road,  to  their  great  ap 
prehension. 

I  never  shall  forget  the  dismal  appearance  of  the  Cedar 
Barrens.  The  soil  was  nowhere  more  than  two  inches  deep, 
and  the  trees  which  covered  it  by  millions  had  all  died  as 
soon  as  they  attained  a  height  of  fifteen  or  twenty  feet. 
Swarms  of  ill-omened  turkey-buzzards  were  the  only  living 
creatures  visible  "  like  foul  lemures  flitting  in  the  gloom." 

Riding  over  the  battlefield  the    Coltons    and    Paxton 


292  MEMOIRS. 

pointed  out  many  things,  for  they  had  all  been  in  it  severely. 
At  one  place,  Major  Eosengarten,  a  brother  of  my  old  Paris 
fellow-student,  had  had  a  sabre-fight  with  a  rebel,  and  they 
told  me  how  Rosengarten's  sword,  being  one  of  the  kind 
which  was  issued  by  contract  in  the  earlier  days  of  the  war, 
bent  and  broke  like  a  piece  of  tin.  Hearing  a  ringing  sound, 
Baldwin  jumped  from  his  horse,  picked  up  a  steel  ramrod, 
and  gave  it  to  me  for  a  cane. 

As  we  approached  Murfreesboro'  I  met  a  genial,  daring 
soldier,  one  Major  Hill,  whom  I  had  seen  before.  He  had 
with  him  a  hundred  and  fifty  cavalry.  "  Where  are  you 
going  so  late  by  night? "  I  said. 

He  replied,  "  I    am  after   that   infernal   scoundrel, — 
— .     My  scouts  have  found  out  pretty  closely  his  range. 
I  am  going  to  divide  my  men  into  tens  and  scatter  them  over 
the  country  and  then  close  in." 

"Major,"!  replied,  "I  will  tell  you  just  where  to  lay 
your  hand  at  once,  heavy  on  him.  Do  you  know  Grindstone 
Knob  and  a  white  house  with  green  windows  at  its  foot?  " 

"  I  do." 

"  Well,  be  there  at  exactly  eleven  to-night,  and  you'll  get 
him.  I  have  been  there  and  learned  it  from  the  niggers." 

"  Well,  I  declare  that  you  are  a  good  scout,  Mr.  Leland  !  " 
cried  the  Major  in  amazement.  "  What  can  I  do  to  thank 
you?" 

"  Well,  Major  Hill,"  I  said, "  I  have  one  thing  to  request : 

that  is,  if  you  get  ,  don't  parole  him.     Shoot  him  at 

once  ;  he  is  a  red-handed  murderer." 

"  I  will  shoot  him,"  said  the  Major,  and  rode  forth  into 

the  night  with  his  men.     But   whether  he   ever  got  

I  never  knew,  though  according  to  the  calculations  of 

the  Coltons,  who  were  extremely  experienced  in  such  matters, 

"  Massa  "  had  not  more  than  one  chance  in  a  thousand 

to  escape,  and  Hill  was  notoriously  a  good  guerilla-hunter 
and  a  man  of  his  word. 

I  believe  that  at  the  plantation  our  men  had  camped  out. 


LIFE  DURING  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  293 

At  Murfreesboro'  we  returned  them  to  the  general,  and  I 
took  the  Coltons  to  a  hotel,  which  was  so  very  rough  that 
I  apologised  for  it,  while  Baldwin  said  it  seemed  to  him  to 
be  luxurious  beyond  belief,  and  that  it  was  the  first  night  for 
eighteen  months  in  which  he  had  slept  in  a  bed.  In  the 
morning  I  wanted  a  spur,  having  lost  one  of  mine,  and  there 
was  brought  to  me  a  large  boxful  of  all  kinds  of  spurs  to 
choose  from,  which  had  been  left  in  the  house  at  one  time  or 
another  during  the  war. 

I  did  not  remain  long  in  Nashville  after  returning 
thither.  I  had  instructions  to  go  to  Louisville,  Kentucky, 
and  there  consult  with  a  certain  merchant  as  to  certain 
lands.  General  Whipple  accompanied  me  to  the  "  depot," 
which  was  for  the  time  and  place  as  much  of  an  honour  as  if 
Her  Majesty  were  to  come  to  see  me  off  at  Victoria  Station. 
There  was  many  and  many  a  magnate  in  those  days  and 
there,  who  would  have  given  thousands  to  have  had  his  ear 
as  Paxton  and  I  had  it. 

One  night  we  were  in  the  side  private  box  at  the  theatre 
in  Nashville.  Couldock,  whom  I  had  known  well  many 
years  before,  was  on  the  stage.  The  General  was  keeping 
himself  deeply  in  the  shade  to  remain  unseen.  He  re 
marked  to  Paxton  that  he  wanted  a  house  for  his  family, 
who  would  soon  arrive,  and  could  not  find  one,  for  they  were 
all  occupied.  This  one  remark  shows  the  man.  I  wonder 
how  long  General  Butler  would  have  hesitated  to.  move  any 
body  ! 

Captain  Paxton  knew  everything  and  everybody.  With 
a  quick  glance  from  his  keen  dark  eyes  he  exclaimed — 

"  I've  got  it !  Do  you  see  that  fat  man  laughing  so 
heartily  in  the  pit?  He  has  a  splendid  house;  it  would 

just  suit  you  ;  and  he's  a  d d  old  rebel.  I  know  enough 

about  him  to  hang  him  three  times  over.  He  has"  (here 
followed  a  series  of  political  iniquities).  "  Voila  votre  affaire." 

"  And  how  is  it  that  he  has  kept  his  house  ?  "  asked  the 
General. 


294  MEMOIRS. 

"  He  sent  the  quartermaster  a  barrel  of  whisky,  or  some 
thing  of  that  sort." 

The  General  looked  thoughtfully  at  the  fat  man  as  the 
latter  burst  into  a  fresh  peal  of  laughter.  I  thought  that  if 
he  had  known  what  was  being  said  in  our  box  that  laugh 
would  have  died  away. 

I  do  not  know  whether  the  General  took  the  house.  I 
think  he  did.  I  left  for  Louisville.  There  I  saw  the  great 
merchant,  who  invited  me  to  his  home  to  supper  and  con 
sulted  with  me.  His  daughters  were  rebels  and  would  not 
speak  to  me.  He  had  a  great  deal  of  property  in  Indiana, 
which  might  be  oil-lauds.  If  I  would  visit  it  and  report  on 
it,  he  would  send  his  partner  with  me  to  examine  it.  I  con 
sented  to  go. 

This  partner,  Mr.  W.,  was  a  young  man  of  agreeable,  easy 
manners.  With  him  I  went  to  Indianapolis,  and  thence  by 
"  stages,"  waggons,  or  on  horseback  through  a  very  dismal 
country  in  gloomy  winter  into  the  interior  of  the  State.  I 
can  remember  vast  marshy  fields  with  millions  of  fiddler  crabs 
scuttling  over  them,  and  more  mud  than  I  had  ever  seen  in 
my  life.  The  village  streets  were  six  inches  deep  in  soft 
mud  up  to  the  doors  and  floors  of  the  houses.  At  last  we 
reached  our  journey's  end  at  a  large  log-house  on  a  good 
farm. 

I  liked  the  good  man  of  the  house.  He  said  to  us,  after  a 
time,  that  at  first  he  thought  we  were  a  couple  of  stuck-up 
city  fellows,  but  had  found  to  his  joy  that  we  were  old-fash 
ioned,  sensible  people.  There  was  no  sugar  at  his  supper- 
table,  but  he  had  three  substitutes  for  it — "  tree-sweetnin',  bee- 
sweetnin',  and  sorghum  " — that  is,  maple  sugar,  honey,  and 
the  molasses  made  from  Chinese  maize.  Only  at  a  mile's  dis 
tance  there  was  a  "  sugar-camp,"  and  we  could  see  the  fires 
and  hear  the  shouts  of  the  people  engaged  night  and  day  in 
making  sugar  from  the  trees. 

He  told  me  that  on  the  hills  in  sight  a  mysterious  light 
often  wandered.  During  the  Revolutionary  war  some  one 


LIFE  DURING  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  295 

had  buried  a  barrelf  ul  of  silver  plate  and  money,  and  over  it 
flitted  the  quivering  silver  flame,  but  no  one  could  ever  find 
the  spot. 

The  next  day  I  examined  the  land.  There  was  abundance 
of  fossiliferous  limestone,  rich  in  petrifactions  of  tertiary 
shells,  also  cartloads  of  beautiful  geodes  or  round  flint  balls, 
which  often  rattled,  and  which,  when  broken,  were  encrusted 
with  white  or  purple  amethystine  crystals.  I  decided  that 
there  were  places  where  oil  might  be  found,  though  there 
was  certainly  no  indication  of  it.  I  believe  that  my  conjec 
ture  subsequently  proved  to  be  true,  and  that  Indiana  has 
shown  herself  to  be  a  wise  virgin  not  without  oil. 

On  the  afternoon  of  the  next  day,  riding  with  my  guide, 
I  found  that  I  had  left  my  blanket  at  a  house  miles  behind. 
I  offered  the  man  a  large  price  to  return  and  bring  it,  which 
he  did.  While  waiting  by  the  wood,  in  a  dismal  drizzle,  I 
saw  a  log  cabin  and  went  to  it  for  shelter.  Its  only  inmate 
was  a  young  woman,  who,  seeing  me  coming,  hastily  locked 
the  door  and  rushed  into  the  neighbouring  woods.  When  the 
guide  returned  I  expressed  some  astonishment  at  the  flight ; 
he  did  not.  With  a  very  grave  expression  he  asked  me,  "  Don't 
the  gals  in  your  part  of  the  country  allays  break  for  the  woods 
when  they  see  you  a-coming  ?  "  "  Certainly  not,"  I  replied. 
To  which  he  made  answer,  "  Thank  God,  our  gals  here  hev 
got  better  morrils  than  yourn." 

We  returned  to  St.  Louis.  There  I  was  shown  the  im 
mensely  long  tomb  of  Porter  the  Kentucky  giant.  This 
man  was  nine  feet  in  height!  I  had  seen  him  alive  long 
before  in  Philadelphia.  I  made  several  interesting  acquaint 
ances  in  St.  Louis,  the  Athens  of  the  West.  But  I  must 
hurry  on. 

I  went  to  Cincinnati,  where  I  found  orders  to  wait  for  Mr. 
Lea.  A  syndicate  had  been  formed  in  Providence,  Khode 
Island,  which  had  purchased  a  great  property  in  Cannelton, 
West  Virginia.  This  consisted  of  a  mountain  in  which  there 
was  an  immense  deposit  of  cannel  coal.  Cannelton  was  very 


296  MEMOIRS. 

near  the  town  of  Charleston,  which  is  at  the  junction  of  the 
Kanawha  (a  tributary  of  the  Ohio)  and  Elk  rivers. 

I  waited  a  week  at  the  hotel  in  Cincinnati  for  Mr.  Lea. 
It  was  a  weary  week,  for  I  had  no  acquaintances  and  made 
none.  Never  in  my  life  before  did  I  see  so  many  Sardines, 
or  Philistines  of  the  dullest  stamp  as  at  that  hotel.  But  at 
last  Mr.  Lea  came  with  a  party  of  ladies  and  gentlemen.  A 
small  steamboat  was  secured,  and  we  went  up  the  Ohio.  The 
voyage  was  agreeable  and  not  without  some  incidents.  There 
was  a  freshet  in  the  river,  and  one  night,  taking  a  short  cut 
over  a  cornfield,  the  steamboat  stuck  fast — like  Eve — in  an 
apple-tree. 

One  day  one  of  the  party  asked  me  what  was  the  greatest 
aggregate  deposit  of  coal  known  in  England.  I  could  not 
answer.  A  few  hours  after  we  stopped  at  a  town  in  Ken 
tucky.  There  I  discovered  by  chance  some  old  Patent  Office 
reports,  and  among  them  all  the  statistics  describing  the  coal 
mines  in  England.  When  we  returned  to  the  boat  I  told  my 
informant  that  the  largest  deposit  in  England  was  just  half 
that  of  Cannelton,  and  added  many  details.  Mr.  Lea  was 
amazed  at  my  knowledge.  I  told  him  that  I  deserved  no 
credit,  for  I  had  picked  it  up  by  chance.  "  Yes,"  he  replied, 
"  and  how  was  it  that  you  chanced  to  read  that  book  ?  None 
of  us  did.  Such  chances  come  to  inquiring  minds." 

It  also  chanced  that  this  whole  country  abounded  in  signs 
of  petroleum.  It  was  found  floating  on  springs.  The  com 
pany  possessed  rights  of  royalty  on  thousands  of  acres  on  Elk 
Eiver,  which  was  as  yet  in  the  debatable  land,  harassed  by 
rebels.  These  claims,  however,  were  "  run  out,"  and  needed 
to  be  renewed  by  signatures  from  the  residents.  They  were 
in  the  hands  of  David  Goshorn,  who  kept  the  only  "  tavern  " 
or  hotel  in  Charleston,  and  he  asked  $5,000  for  his  rights. 
There  was  another  party  in  the  field  after  them. 

I  verily  believe  that  David  Goshorn  sold  the  right  to  me 
because  he  played  the  fiddle  and  I  the  guitar,  and  because  he 
did  not  like  the  rival,  who  was  a  Yankee,  while  I  was  a  con- 


LIFE  DURING  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  297 

genial  companion.  Many  a  journey  had  we  together,  and  as 
I  appreciated  him  as  a  marked  character  of  odd  oppositions, 
we  got  on  admirably. 

In  Cunnelton  I  went  down  into  a  coal  mine  and  risked 
my  life  strangely  in  ascending  a  railway.  The  hill  is  1,500 
feet  in  height,  and  on  its  face  is  a  railway  which  ascends  at 
an  angle  of  15°,  perhaps  the  steepest  in  America.  I  ascended 
in  it,  and  soon  observed  that  of  the  two  strands  of  the  iron 
cable  which  drew  it  one  was  broken.  The  very  next  week 
the  other  broke,  and  two  men  were  killed  by  an  awful  death, 
they  and  the  car  falling  a  thousand  feet  to  the  rocks  below. 

The  next  week  we  returned  to  Cincinnati,  and  thence  to 
Philadelphia.  On  my  way  from  New  York  to  Providence  I 
became  acquainted  in  the  train  with  a  modest,  gentlemanly 
man,  who  told  me  he  was  a  great-grandson  or  descendant  of 
Thomson  who  wrote  the  "  Seasons."  I  thought  him  both 
great  and  grand  in  an  incident  which  soon  occurred.  A  burl}', 
bull-necked  fellow  in  the  car  was  attacked  with  an  epileptic 
fit.  He  roared,  kicked,  screamed  like  a  wildcat ;  and  among 
fifty  men  in  the  vehicle,  I  venture  to  say  that  only  Thomson 
and  I,  in  a  lesser  degree,  showed  any  plain  common  sense. 
I  darted  at  the  epileptic,  grappled  with  him,  held  him  down 
by  what  might  be  called  brutal  kindness,  for  I  held  his  head 
down,  while  I  sat  011  his  arm  and  throttled  him  sans  merci — 
I  avow  it — and  tore  off  in  haste  his  neckcloth  (his  neck  was 
frightfully  swelled),  while  Thomson  brought  cold  water  from 
the  "  cooler,"  with  which  we  bathed  his  face  freely,  and 
chafed  his  pulse  and  forehead.  Little  by  little  he  recovered. 
The  other  passengers,  as  usual,  did  nothing,  and  a  little  old 
naval  officer,  who  had  been  fifty  years  in  service  (as  Thom 
son  told  me),  simply  kicked  and  screamed  convulsively, 
"  Take  him  away !  take  him  away ! "  The  epileptic  was 
George  Christy,  the  original  founder  of  the  Christy  Minstrels. 
I  can  never  think  of  this  scene  without  exclaiming,  "  Vive 
Thomson  ! "  for  he  was  the  only  man  among  us  who  dis 
played  quiet  self-possession  and  savoir  faire.  As  for  me,  my 


298  MEMOIRS. 

"  old  Injun  "  was  up,  and  I  had  "  sailed  in  "  for  a  fight  by 
mere  impulse.  Vive  Thomson  !  Bon  sang  ne pent  mentir. 

I  went  to  Providence,  where  I  was  empowered  to  return 
to  Cannelton  to  pay  Goshorn  $5,000,  and  renew  the  leases 
on  Elk  River.  I  should  have  to  travel  post  to  anticipate  the 
Yankee.  It  was  not  concealed  from  me  that  even  if  I  suc 
ceeded,  I  had  before  me  a  very  dangerous  and  difficult  task. 
But  after  what  I  had  already  gone  through  with  I  was  ready 
for  anything.  I  was  really  developing  rapidly  a  wild,  reck 
less  spirit — the  "  Injun  "  was  coming  out  of  me.  My  old 
life  and  self  had  vanished  like  dreams.  Only  now  and  then, 
in  the  forests  or  by  torrents,  did  something  like  poetry  re 
visit  me ;  literature  was  dead  in  me.  Only  once  did  I,  in  a 
railway  train,  compose  the  "Maiden  mit  nodings  on."  I 
bore  it  in  my  memory  for  years  before  I  wrote  it  out. 

I  arrived  in  Philadelphia.  The  next  morning  I  was  to 
rise  early  and  fly  westward.  No  time  to  lose.  Before  I  rose, 
my  sister  knocked  at  the  door  and  told  us  the  awful  news 
that  President  Lincoln  had  been  murdered  ! 

As  I  went  to  the  station  I  saw  men  weeping  in  the  streets, 
and  everybody  in  great  grief,  conversing  with  strangers,  as  if 
all  had  lost  a  common  relation.  Everywhere  utter  misery ! 
I  arrived  in  Pittsburg.  It  was  raining,  and  the  black  pall  of 
smoke  which  always  clothes  the  town  was  denser  than  ever, 
and  the  long  black  streamers  which  hung  everywhere  as 
mourning  made  the  whole  place  unutterably  ghastly.  In 
the  trains  nothing  but  the  murder  was  spoken  of.  There 
was  a  young  man  who  had  been  in  the  theatre  and  witnessed 
the  murder,  which  he  described  graphically  and  evidently 
truthfully. 

I  reached  Cincinnati,  and  as  soon  as  possible  hurried  on 
board  the  steamboat.  We  went  along  to  Charleston,  and  it 
will  hardly  be  believed  that  I  very  nearly  missed  the  whole 
object  of  my  journey  by  falling  asleep.  AVe  had  but  one 
more  very  short  distance  to  go,  when,  overcome  by  fatigue,  I 
dropped  into  a  nap.  Fortunately  I  was  awakened  by  the  last 


LIFE  DUKING   THE  CIVIL  WAR.  299 

ringing  of  the  bell,  and,  seizing  my  carpet-bag,  ran  ashore 
just  as  the  plank  was  to  be  withdrawn. 

I  went  directly  to  Goshorn's  hotel.  He  was  a  stout,  burly 
man,  shrewd  in  his  way,  good-natured,  but  not  without  tem 
per  and  impulses.  He  looked  keenly  after  business,  played 
the  fiddle,  and  performed  a  few  tricks  of  legerdemain.  He 
had  a  ladylike  wife,  and  both  were  very  kind  to  me,  epecially 
after  they  came  to  know  me  pretty  well.  The  lady  had  a 
nice,  easy  horse,  which  ere  long  was  lent  me  freely  whenever 
I  wanted  to  ride.  One  day  it  was  missing.  The  master 
grieved.  They  had  named  it  after  me  in  compliment. 
"  Goshorn,"  I  said,  "  in  future  I  shall  call  you  Horse-gone." 
But  he  was  not  pleased  with  the  name.  However,  it  was  re 
covered  by  a  miracle,  for  the  amount  of  horse-stealing  which 
went  on  about  us  then  was  fabulous. 

After  a  few  days  Goshorn  and  I  prepared  to  go  up  Elk 
Eiver,  to  renew  the  leases  of  oil  and  coal  lands.  ]S"ow  I  must 
premise  that  at  all  times  the  man  who  was  engaged  in  "  ile  " 
bore  a  charmed  life,  and  was  venerated  by  both  Union  men 
and  rebels.  He  could  pass  the  lines  and  go  anywhere.  At 
one  time,  when  not  a  spy  could  be  got  into  or  out  of  Eich- 
mond  to  serve  us,  Goshorn  seriously  proposed  to  me  to  go 
with  him  into  the  city !  I  had  a  neighbour  named  Fassit,  an 
uncle  of  Theodore.  He  had  oil-wells  in  Virginia,  and  when 
the  war  begun  work  on  them  was  stopped.  This  dismayed 
the  natives.  One  morning  there  came  to  Mr.  Fassit  a  letter 
imploring  him  to  return :  "  Come  back,  o  come  agin  and 
bore  us  some  more  wels.  We  wil  protec  you  like  a  son. 
We  dont  make  war  on  //e."  And  I,  being  thus  respected, 
went  and  came  from  the  Foeman's  Land,  and  joined  in  the 
dreadful  rebel-ry  and  returned  unharmed,  leading  a  charmed 
if  not  particularly  charming  life  all  winter  and  the  spring, 
to  the  great  amazement  and  bewilderment  of  many,  as  will 
appear  in  the  sequence. 

The  upper  part  of  Elk  Eiver  was  in  the  debatable  land, 
or  rather  still  in^Slave-ownia  or  rebeldom,  where  a  Union 


300  MEMOIRS. 

man's  life  was  worth  about  a  chinquapin.  In  fact,  one  day 
there  was  a  small  battle  between  me  and  home — with  divers 
wounds  and  deaths.  This  going  and  coming  of  mine,  among 
and  with  rebels,  got  me  into  a  droll  misunderstanding  some 
time  after.  But  I  think  that  the  real  cause  lay  less  in  oil 
than  in  the  simple  truth  that  these  frank,  half-wild  fellows 
liked  me.  One  said  to  me  one  day,  "  You're  onlike  all 
the  Northern  men  who  come  here,  and  we  all  like  you. 
What's  the  reason  ?  "  I  explained  it  that  he  had  only  met 
with  Yankees,  and  that  as  Pennsylvania  lay  next  to  Virginia, 
of  course  we  must  be  more  alike  as  neighbours.  But  the 
cause  lay  in  the  liking  which  I  have  for  Indians,  gypsies,  and 
all  such  folk. 

Goshorn  began  by  buying  a  dug-out  poplar  canoe  sixty- 
four  feet  in  length,  and  stocking  it  with  provisions.  "  Money 
won't  be  of  much  use,"  he  said ;  "  what  we  want  chiefly  is 
whisky  and  blue  beads  for  presents."  He  hired  two  men 
who  had  been  in  the  Confederate  army,  but  who  had  ab 
sented  themselves  since  the  proceedings  had  become  uninter 
esting.  These  men  took  to  me  with  a  devotion  which  ended 
by  becoming  literally  superstitious.  I  am  quite  sure  that, 
while  naturally  intelligent,  anything  like  a  mind  stored  with 
varied  knowledge  was  something  utterly  unknown  to  them. 
And  as  I,  day  by  day,  let  fall  unthinkingly  this  or  that  scrap 
of  experience  or  of  knowledge,  they  began  to  regard  me  as  a 
miracle.  One  day  one  of  them,  Sam  Fox,  said  to  me  mean 
ingly,  that  I  liked  curious  things,  and  that  he  knew  a  nest 
where  he  could  get  me  a  young  raven.  The  raven  is  to  an 
Indian  conjuror  what  a  black  cat  is  to  a  witch,  and  I  suppose 
that  Sam  thought  I  must  be  lonely  without  a  familiar. 
Which  recalls  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  experiences  of 
all  my  life. 

During  my  return  down  the  river,  it  was  in  a  freshet,  and 
we  went  headlong.  This  is  to  the  very  last  degree  dangerous, 
unless  the  boatmen  know  every  rock  and  point,  for  the  dug 
out  canoe  goes  over  at  a  touch,  and  there  is  no  life  to  be 


LIFE  DURING  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  301 

saved  in  the  rapids.  Now  we  were  flying  like  a  swallow,  and 
could  not  stop.  There  was  one  narrow  shoot,  or  pass,  just  in 
the  middle  of  the  river,  where  there  was  exactly  room  to  an 
inch  for  a  canoe  to  pass,  but  to  do  this  it  was  necessary  to 
have  moonlight  enough  to  see  the  King  Kock,  which  rose  in 
the  stream  close  by  the  passage,  and  at  the  critical  instant  to 
"  fend  off  "  with  the  hand  and  prevent  the  canoe  from  driv 
ing  full  on  the  rock.  A  terrible  storm  was  coming  up, 
thunder  was  growling  afar,  and  clouds  fast  gathering  in 
the  sky. 

The  men  had  heard  me  talking  the  day  before  as  to  how 
storms  were  formed  in  circles,  and  it  had  deeply  impressed 
them.  When  Goshorn  asked  them  what  we  had  better  do, 
they  said,  "  Leave  it  all  to  Mr.  Leland ;  he  knows  every 
thing."  I  looked  at  the  moon  and  saw  that  the  clouds  were 
not  driving  dead  against  it,  but  around  while  closing  in,  and 
I  know  not  by  what  strange  inspiration  I  added,  "  You  will 
have  just  time  to  clear  King  Eock  ! " 

It  was  still  far  away.  I  laid  down  my  paddle  and  drew 
my  blanket  round  me,  and  smoked  to  the  storm,  and  sang 
incantations  to  myself.  It  was  a  fearful  trial,  actually  risk 
ing  death,  but  I  felt  no  fear — only  a  dull  confidence  in  fate. 
Closer  grew  the  clouds — darker  the  sky — when  during  the 
very  last  second  of  light  King  Kock  came  in  sight.  Goshorn 
was  ready  with  his  bull-like  strength  and  gave  the  push ; 
and  just  as  we  shot  clear  into  the  channel  it  became  dark  as 
pitch,  and  the  rain  came  down  in  a  torrent.  Goshorn  pitched 
his  hat  high  into  the  air — aux  moulins — and  hurrahed  and 
cried  in  exulting  joy. 

"Now,  Mr.  Leland,  sing  us  that  German  song  you're 
always  so  jolly  with — lodlo  yodle  tol  de  rol  de  rol !  " 

From  that  hour  I  was  Kcliee-Bo-o-in  or  Grand  Pow-wow 
to  Sam  Fox  and  his  friends.  He  believed  in  me,  even  as  I 
believe  in  myself  when  such  mad  "  spells "  come  over  me. 
One  day  he  proved  his  confidence.  It  was  bright  and  sun 
shiny,  and  we  were  paddling  along  when  we  saw  a  "  summer 
14 


302  MEMOIRS. 

duck  "  swimming  perhaps  fifty  yards  ahead.  Sam  was  sitting 
in  the  bow  exactly  between  me  and  the  duck.  "  Fire  at  it 
with  your  revolver ! "  cried  Sam. 

"  It  is  too  far  away,"  I  replied,  "and  you  are  right  in  the 
way." 

Sam  bent  over  sideways,  glaring  at  me  with  his  one 
strange  eye.  It  was  just  about  as  close  a  shot  as  was  William 
Toll's  at  the  apple.  But  I  knew  that  reputation  for  nerve 
depended  on  it,  so  I  fired.  As  the  duck  rose  it  dropped  a 
feather. 

"  I  knew  you'd  hit ! "  cried  Sam  triumphantly.  And  so 
I  had,  but  I  should  not  like  to  try  that  shot  again. 

Beflex  action  of  the  brain  and  secondary  automatism  !  It 
must  be  so — Haeckel,  thou  reasonest  well.  But  when  the 
"  old  Injun  "  and  my  High-Dutch  ancestor  are  upon  me,  I 
reason  not  at  all,  and  then  I  see  visions  and  dream  dreams, 
and  it  always  comes  true,  without  the  least  self-deception  or 
delusion. 

It  is  a  marvellous  thing  that  in  these  canoes,  which  tip  over 
so  easily,  men  will  pass  over  mill-dams  ten  or  twelve  feet  high, 
as  I  myself  have  done  many  a  time,  without  upsetting.  The 
manner  of  it  is  this.  The  canoe  is  a  log  hollowed  out.  This 
is  allowed  to  pass  ov-er  till  it  dips  like  a  seesaw,  or  falls  into 
the  stream  below.  It  is  a  dangerous,  reckless  act,  but  gen 
erally  succeeds.  One  day  Sam  Fox  undertook  to  shoot  our 
dug-out  over  a  fall.  So  he  paddled  hard,  and  ran  the  canoe 
headlong  to  edge,  he  being  in  the  bow.  But  it  stuck  half 
way,  and  there  was  my  Samuel,  ere  he  knew  it,  high  in  the 
air,  paddling  in  the  atmosphere,  into  which  thirty  feet  of 
canoe  was  raised. 

Meanwhile,  the  legal  business  and  renewal  of  the  leases 
and  the  payment  of  money  was  performed  accurately  and 
punctually.  Talk  about  manna  in  the  wilderness  !  money  in 
the  wilderness  came  to  the  poor  souls  impoverished  by  the 
war  as  a  thousandfold  nicer.  But  over  and  above  that,  half 
a  pound  of  coffee  or  a  drink  of  whisky  would  cause  a  thrill 


LIFE  DURING  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  3Q3 

of  delight.  One  day,  stopping  at  a  logger's  camp,  I  gave  a 
decent-looking  man  a  tin  cup  full  of  whisky.  The  first  thing 
he  did  was  to  put  it  to  the  mouth  of  a  toddling  two-year-old 
child,  and  it  took  a  good  pull.  I  remonstrated  with  him  for 
it,  when  he  replied,  "  Well,  you  see,  sir,  we  get  it  so  seldom, 
that  whisky  is  a  kind  o'  delicacy  with  us." 

Sometimes  the  log  huts  were  twenty  miles  apart.  In 
such  isolation  there  is  no  rivalry  of  ostentation,  and  men  care 
only  to  live.  One  day  we  came  to  a  log  house.  The  occu 
pant  had  several  hundred  acres  of  very  good  land,  and  only 
a  half  acre  under  cultivation.  He  was  absent  at  a  county 
court  for  amusement.  All  that  I  could  see  in  the  cabin  was 
a  rude  seat,  an  iron  pot  and  spoon,  and  a  squirrel-gun. 
There  were  two  cavities  or  holes  in  the  bare  earth  floor,  in 
which  the  old  man  and  his  wife  slept,  each  wrapped  in  a 
blanket.  Even  our  boatman  said  that  such  carelessness  was 
unusual.  But  all  were  ignorant  of  a  thousand  refinements 
of  life  of  which  the  poorest  English  peasant  knows  some 
thing,  yet  every  one  of  these  people  had  an  independence  or 
pride  far  above  all  poverty. 

One  night  we  stopped  at  the  house  of  a  man  who  was 
said  to  possess  $150,000  (£30,000)  worth  of  land.  The 
house  was  well  enough.  His  two  bare-legged  daughters, 
girls  of  seventeen  or  eighteen,  lounged  about  smoking  pipes. 
I  gave  one  a  cigar.  She  replied,  "  I  don't  keer  if  I  do  try  it. 
I've  allays  wanted  to  know  what  a  cigar  smokes  like."  But 
she  didn't  like  it.  Apropos  of  girls,  I  may  say  that  there  is 
a  far  higher  standard  of  morals  among  these  people  than 
among  the  ignorant  elsewhere. 

It  was  indeed  a  wild  country.  One  day  Goshorn  showed 
mo  a  hill,  and  a  hunter  had  told  him  that  when  standing  on 
it  one  summer  afternoon  he  had  seen  in  a  marshy  place  the 
very  unusual  spectacle  of  forty  bears,  all  wallowing  together 
in  the  mud  and  playing  at  once.  Also  the  marks  of  a  bear's 
claws  on  a  tree.  Game  was  plenty  in  this  region.  All  the 
time  that  I  stayed  with  Goshorn  we  had  every  day  at  his 


304 


MEMOIRS. 


well-furnished  table  bear's  meat,  venison,  or  other  game,  fish, 
ham,  chickens,  &c. 

There  was  a  great  deal  of  very  beautiful  scenery  on  Elk 
River,  and  some  of  its  "  incidents  "  were  marvellously  strange, 
The  hard  sandstone  rocks  had  worn  into  shapes  resembling 
castles  and  houses,  incredibly  like  buildings  made  by  man. 
One  day  I  saw  and  copied  a  vast  square  rock  through  which 
ran  to  the  light  a  perfect  Gothic  archway  sixty  feet  high, 
with  a  long  wall  like  the  side  of  a  castle,  and  an  immense 
square  tower.  There  are  the  most  natural-looking  houses 
and  Schlosser  imaginable  rising  all  alone  in  the  forest.  Very 
often  the  summits  of  the  hills  were  crowned  with  round  tow 
ers.  On  the  Ohio  River  there  is  a  group  of  these  shaped  like 
segments  of  a  truncated  cone,  and  "  corniced  "  with  another 
piece  reversed,  like  this  : 


•v-      _: 


^>X  rag- ^:r 

>^^VWf  - 


These  are  called  "  Devil's  Tea-tables."  I  drew  them  sev 
eral  times,  but  could  never  give  them  the  appearance  of  be 
ing  natural  objects.  It  is  very  extraordinary  how  Nature 
seems  to  have  mocked  man  in  advance  in  these  structures. 
In  Fingal's  Cave  there  is  an  absolutely  original  style  of  archi 
tecture. 

The  last  house  which  we  came  to  was  the  best.  In  it 
dwelt  a  gentlemanly  elderly  man  with  two  ladylike  daugh 
ters.  His  son,  who  was  dressed  in  "  store  clothes,"  had  been 
a  delegate  to  the  Wheeling  Convention.  But  the  war  had 


LIFE  DURING  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  305 

borne  hard  on  them,  and  for  a  long  time  everything  which 
they  used  or  wore  had  been  made  by  their  own  hands.  They 
had  a  home-made  loom  and  spinning-wheel — I  saw  several 
such  looms  on  the  river ;  they  raised  their  own  cotton  and 
wool  and  maple  sugar,  and  were  in  all  important  details 
utterly  self-sustaining  and  independent.  And  they  did  not 
live  rudely  at  all,  but  like  ladies  and  gentlemen,  as  really  in 
telligent  people  always  can  when  they  are  free.  The  father 
had,  not  long  before,  standing  in  his  own  door,  shot  a  deer 
as  it  looked  over  the  garden  gate  at  him.  Goshorn,  observ 
ing  that  I  attached  some  value  to  the  horns  (a  new  idea  to 
him),  secured  them  for  himself. 

A  day  or  two  after,  while  descending  the  river,  we  stopped 
to  see  an  old  hunter  who  lived  on  the  bank.  He  was  a  very 
shrewd,  quaint  old  boy,  "  good  for  a  novel."  He  examined 
Goshorn's  spectacles  with  so  much  interest,  that  I  suspect  it 
was  really  the  first  time  in  his  life  that  he  ever  fully  ascer 
tained  the  "  true  inwardness  and  utilitarianism  "  of  such  ob 
jects.  He  expressed  great  admiration,  and  said  that  if  he 
had  them  he  could  get  twice  as  many  deer  as  he  did.  I 
promised  to  send  him  a  pair.  I  begged  from  him  deer-horns, 
which  he  gave  me  very  willingly,  expressing  wonder  that  I 
wanted  such  rubbish,  and  at  my  delight.  And  seeing  that 
my  companion  had  a  pair,  he  said  scornfully : 

"Dave  Goshorn,  what  do  you  know  about  such  things? 
What's  set  you  to  gittin'  deer's  horns?  Give  'em  to  this  here 
young  gentleman,  who  understands  such  things  that  we  don't, 
and  who  wants  'em  fur  some  good  reason/' 

I  will  do  Goshorn  the  justice  to  say  that  he  gave  them  to 
me  for  a  parting  present.  My  room  at  his  house  was  quite 
devoid  of  all  decoration,  but  by  arranging  on  the  walls  crossed 
canoe-paddles,  great  bunches  of  the  picturesque  locust-thorn, 
often  nearly  a  foot  in  length,  and  the  deer's  horns,  I  made  it 
look  rather  more  human.  But  this  arrangement  utterly  be 
wildered  the  natives,  especially  the  maids,  who  naively  asked 
me  why  I  hung  them  old  bones  and  thorns  up  in  my  room. 


306  MEMOIRS. 

As  this  thorn  is  much  used  by  the  blacks  in  Voodoo,  I  sup 
pose  that  it  was  all  explained  by  being  set  down  to  my  "  con- 
jurin'." 

The  maid  who  attended  to  my  room  was  a  very  nice,  good 
girl,  but  one  who  could  not  have  been  understood  in  Eng 
land.  I  found  that  she  gathered  up  and  treasured  many 
utterly  worthless  trifling  bits  of  pen-drawing  which  I  threw 
away.  She  explained  that  where  she  came  from  on  Coal  River, 
anything  like  a  picture  was  a  great  curiosity ;  also  that  her 
friends  believed  that  all  the  pictures  in  books,  newspapers,  &c., 
were  drawn  by  hand.  I  explained  to  her  how  they  were  made. 
When  I  left  I  offered  her  two  dollars.  She  hesitated,  and 
then  said,  "  Mr.  Leland,  there  have  been  many,  many  gentle 
men  here  who  have  offered  me  money,  but  I  never  took  a 
cent  from  any  man  till  now.  And  I  will  take  this  from  you 
to  buy  something  that  I  can  remember  you  by,  for  you  have 
always  treated  me  kindly  and  like  a  lady."  In  rural  America 
such  girls  are  really  lady-helps,  and  not  "  servants,"  albeit 
those  who  know  how  to  get  on  with  them  find  them  the  very 
best  servants  in  the  world;  but  they  must  be  treated  as 
friends. 

I  went  up  Elk  River  several  times  on  horse  or  in  canoe 
to  renew  leases  or  to  lease  new  land,  &c.  The  company  sent 
on  a  very  clever  and  intelligent  rather  young  man  named 
Sandford,  who  had  been  a  railroad  superintendent,  to  help 
me.  I  liked  him  very  much.  We  had  a  third,  a  young  Vir 
ginian,  named  Finnal.  At  or  near  Cannelton  I  selected  a 
spot  where  we  put  up  a  steam-engine,  and  began  to  bore  for 
oil.  It  was  very  near  the  famous  gas-well  which  once  be 
longed  to  General  Washington.  This  well  gave  forth  every 
week  the  equivalent  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  tons  of  coal. 
It  was  utilised  in  a  factory.  After  I  sunk  our  shaft  it  gave 
out ;  but  I  do  not  believe  that  we  stopped  it,  for  no  gas  came 
into  our  well.  Finnal  was  the  superintendent  of  the  well. 
One  day  he  nearly  sat  down — nudo  podice — on  an  immense 
rattlesnake.  He  had  a  little  cottage  and  a  fine  horse.  He 


LIFE  DURING  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  30? 

kept  the  latter  in  a  stable  and  painted  the  door  white,  so  that 
when  waking  in  the  night  he  could  see  if  any  horse-thief  had 
opened  it.  Many  efforts  were  made  to  rob  him  of  it. 

At  this  time  Lee's  army  was  disbanded,  and  fully  one-half 
came  straggling  in  squads  up  the  valley  to  Charleston  to  be 
paroled.  David  Goshorn's  hotel  was  simply  crammed  with 
Confederate  officers,  who  slept  anywhere.  With  these  I 
easily  became  friends ;  they  seemed  like  Princeton  Southern 
college  mates.  Now  I  have  to  narrate  a  strange  story.  One 
evening  when  I  was  sitting  and  smoking  on  the  portico  with 
some  of  these  tons  compagnons  I  said  to  one — 

"  People  say  that  your  men  never  once  during  the  war 
got  within  sight  of  Harrisburg  or  of  a  Northern  city.  But  I 
believe  they  did.  One  day  when  I  was  on  guard  I  saw  five 
men  scout  on  the  bank  in  full  sight  of  it.  But  nobody 
agreed  with  me." 

The  officer  laughed  silently,  and  cried  aloud  to  a  friend 
with  a  broken  arm  in  a  sling,  who  lay  within  a  room  on  a 

bed,  "  Come  out  here,  L .  Here  is  something  which  will 

interest  you  more  than  anything  you  ever  heard  before." 

He  came  out,  and,  having  heard  my  story,  said — 

"  Nobody  ever  believed  your  story,  nor  did  anybody  ever 
believe  mine.  Mine  is  this — that  when  we  were  at  Sporting 
Hill  a  corporal  of  mine  came  in  and  declared  that  he  and  his 
men  had  scouted  into  within  full  sight  of  Harrisburg.  I 
knew  that  the  man  told  the  truth,  but  nobody  else  would  be 
lieve  that  any  human  being  dared  to  do  such  a  thing,  or 
could  do  it.  And  now  you  fully  prove  that  it  was  done." 

There  came  to  Goshorn's  three  very  interesting  men  with 
whom  I  became  intimate.  One  was  Robert  Hunt,  of  St. 
Louis.  He  was  of  a  very  good  Virginia  family,  had  been  at 
Princeton  College,  ran  away  in  his  sixteenth  year,  took  to 
the  plains  as  a  hunter,  and  for  twenty-three  years  had  ranged 
the  Wild  West  from  the  Rocky  Mountains  to  the  Pacific. 
At  the  end  of  the  time  an  uncle  in  the  Fur  Company  had 
helped  him  on,  and  he  was  now  rich.  He  was  one  of  the 


308  MEMOIRS. 

most  genial,  gay,  and  festive,  reckless  yet  always  gentlemanly 
men  I  ever  knew.  He  expressed  great  astonishment,  as  he 
learned  gradually  to  know  me,  at  finding  we  were  so  con 
genial,  and  that  I  had  so  much  "  real  Injun  "  in  me.  His 
eyes  were  first  opened  to  this  great  fact  by  a  very  singular 
incident,  of  which  I  can  never  think  without  pleasure. 

Hunt,  with  two  men  who  had  been  cavalry  captains  all 
through  the  war,  and  his  friend  Ross,  who  had  long  been  an 
Indian  trader,  and  I,  were  all  riding  up  Elk  Valley  to  look  at 
lands.  We  paused  at  a  place  where  the  road  sloped  sideways 
and  was  wet  with  rain.  As  I  was  going  to  remount,  I  asked 
a  German  who  stood  by  to  hold  my  horse's  head,  and  sprang 
into  the  saddle.  Just  at  this  critical  instant — it  all  passed  in 
a  second — as  the  German  had  not  heard  me,  my  horse,  feel 
ing  that  he  must  fall  over  on  his  left  side  from  my  weight, 
threw  himself  completely  over  ~baclcii'ard.  As  quick  as 
thought  I  jumped  up  on  his  back,  put  my  foot  just  between 
the  saddle  and  his  tail,  and  took  a  tremendous  flying  leap  so 
far  that  I  cleared  the  horse.  I  only  muddied  the  palms  of 
my  gloves,  on  which  I  fell. 

The  elder  cavalry  captain  said,  "  When  I  saw  that  horse 
go  over  backwards,  I  closed  my  eyes  and  held  my  breath,  for 
I  expected  the  next  second  to  see  you  killed."  But  Robert 
Hunt  exclaimed,  "  Good  as  an  Injun,  by  God  !  "  And  when 
I  some  time  after  made  fun  of  it,  he  shook  his  head  gravely 
and  reprovingly,  as  George  Ward  did  over  the  gunpowder, 
and  said,  "  It  was  a  magnificent  thing !  " 

That  very  afternoon  Hunt  distinguished  himself  in  a 
manner  which  was  quite  as  becoming  an  aborigine.  I  was 
acting  as  guide,  and  knowing  that  there  was  a  ford  across  a 
tributary  of  the  Elk,  sought  and  thought  I  had  found  it. 
But  I  was  mistaken,  and  what  was  horrible,  we  found  our 
selves  in  a  deep  quicksand.  On  such  occasions  horses  be 
come,  as  it  were,  insane,  trying  to  throw  the  riders  and  then 
jump  on  them  for  support.  By  good  luck  we  got  out  of  it 
soon,  but  there  was  an  awful  five  minutes  of  kicking,  plung- 


LIFE  DURING  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  309 

ing,  splashing,  and  "  ground  and  lofty "  swearing.  I  got 
across  dry  by  drawing  my  legs  up  before  me  on  the  saddle, 
a  la  tailor,  but  the  others  were  badly  wet.  But  no  sooner 
had  we  emerged  from  the  stream  than  Eobert  Hunt,  bursting 
into  a  tremendous  "Ho  !  ho ! "  of  deep  laughter,  declared  that 
he  had  shown  more  presence  of  mind  during  the  emergency 
than  any  of  us ;  for,  brandishing  his  whisky  flask,  he  de 
clared  that  while  his  horse  was  in  the  flurry  it  occurred  to 
him  that  the  best  thing  he  could  do  was  to  lighten  the  load, 
and  he  had  therefore,  with  incredible  presence  of  mind, 
drunk  up  all  the  whisky ! 

However,  he  afterwards  confessed  to  me  that  the  true 
reason  was  that,  believing  death  was  at  hand,  and  thinking  it 
a  pity  to  die  thirsty,  he  had  drained  the  bottle,  as  did  the  old 
Indian  woman  just  as  she  went  over  the  Falls  of  Niagara. 
Anyhow,  the  incorrigible  vauri&n  had  really  emptied  his  flask 
while  in  the  "  quick." 

Though  I  say  it,  I  believe  that  Hunt  and  I  were  a  pretty 
well  matched  couple,  and  many  a  wild  prank  and  Indian-like 
joke  did  we  play  together.  More  than  once  he  expressed 
great  astonishment  that  I,  a  man  grown  up  in  cities  and  to 
literary  pursuits,  should  be  so  much  at  home  where  he  found 
me,  or  so  congenial.  He  had  been  at  Princeton,  and,  ex  pede 
Herculem,  had  a  point  whence  to  judge  me,  but  it  failed.* 
His  friend  Ross  was  a  quiet,  sensible  New  Englander,  who 
reminded  me  of  Artemus  AVard,  or  Charles  Browne.  He 
abounded  in  quaint  anecdotes  of  Indian  experiences. 

As  did  also  a  Mr.  Wadsworth,  who  had  passed  half  his 
life  in  the  Far  West  as  a  surveyor  among  the  Chippeways. 
He  had  written  a  large  manuscript  of  their  legends,  of  which 
Schoolcraft  made  great  use  in  his  Algic  book.  I  believe  that 
much  of  Longfellow's  Hiawatha  owed  its  origin  thus  indi- 

*  The  reader  may  find  some  interesting  references  to  Robert  Hunt 
in  the  Introduction  by  me  to  the  Life  of  James  Beckwourth,  the  famous 
chief  of  the  Crow  Indians.  London  :  T.  Fisher  Unwin,  1893. 


310  MEMOIRS. 

rectly  to  Mr.  "Wadsworth.  In  after  years  I  wrote  out  many 
of  his  tales,  as  told  to  me,  in  articles  in  Temple  Bar. 

The  country  all  about  Charleston  was  primitively  wild 
and  picturesque,  rocky,  hilly,  and  leading  to  solitary  life  and 
dreams  of  sylvani  and  forest  fairies.  There  were  fountained 
hills,  and  dreamy  darkling  woods,  and  old  Indian  graves,  and 
a  dancing  stream,  across  which  lay  a  petrified  tree,  and  every 
where  a  little  travelled  land.  I  explored  it  with  Goshorn, 
riding  far  and  wide  into  remote  mountain  recesses,  to  get  the 
signatures  in  attestation  of  men  who  could  rarely  write,  but 
on  the  other  hand  could  "  shoot  their  mark "  with  a  rifle 
to  perfection,  and  who  would  assuredly  have  placed  such 
signature  on  me  had  I  not  been  a  holy  messenger  of  lie,  and 
an  angel  of  coming  moneyed  times. 

One  day  we  stopped  at  a  farm-house  in  a  wild,  lonely  place. 
There  was  only  an  old  woman  there — one  of  the  stern,  resolute, 
hard-muscled  frontier  women,  the  daughters  of  mothers  who 
had  fought  "  Injuns  " — and  a  calf.  And  thereby  hung  a  tale, 
which  the  three  men  with  me  fully  authenticated. 

The  whole  country  thereabouts  had  been  for  four  years  so 
worried,  harried,  raided,  raked,  plundered,  and  foraged  by 
Federals  and  Confederates — one  day  the  former,  the  next  the 
latter  ;  blue  and  grey,  or  sky  and  sea — that  the  old  lady  had 
nothing  left  to  live  on.  Hens,  cows,  horses,  corn,  all  had 
gone  save  one  calf,  the  Benjamin  and  idol  of  her  heart. 

One  night  she  heard  a  piteous  baaing,  and,  seizing  a 
broom,  rushed  to  the  now  henless  hen-house,  in  which  she 
kept  the  calf,  to  find  in  it  a  full-grown  panther  attacking  her 
pet.  By  this  time  the  old  lady  had  grown  desperate,  and 
seizing  the  broom,  she  proceeded  to  "  lam  "  the  wild  beast 
with  the  handle,  and  with  all  her  heart ;  and  the  fiend  of 
ferocity,  appalled  at  her  attack,  fled.  I  saw  the  calf  with  the 
marks  of  the  panther's  claws,  not  yet  quite  healed ;  I  saw  the 
broom ;  and,  lastly,  I  saw  the  old  woman,  the  mother  in 
Ishmael ;  whose  face  was  a  perfect  guarantee  of  the  truth  of 
the  story.  One  of  us  suggested  that  the  old  lady  should  have 


LIFE  DURING  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  3H 

the  calf's  hide  tanned  and  wear  it  as  a  trophy,  like  an  Indian, 
which  would  have  been  a  strange  reversal  of  Shakespeare's 
application  of  it,  or  to 

"  Hang  a  calf-skin  on  those  recreant  limbs." 

Then  there  came  the  great  spring  freshet  in  Elk  Eiver, 
which  rose  unusually  high,  fifty  feet  above  its  summer  level. 
It  had  come  to  within  an  inch  or  two  of  my  floor,  and  yet  I 
went  to  bed  and  to  sleep.  By  a  miracle  it  rose  no  more,  for 
I  had  a  distinct  conviction  it  would  not,  which  greatly 
amazed  everybody.  But  many  were  drowned  all  about  us. 
The  next  day  a  man  who  professed  bone-setting  and  doctor 
ing,  albeit  not  diplomaed,  asked  me  to  go  with  him  and  act 
as  interpreter  to  a  German  patient  who  had  a  broken  thigh. 
While  felling  a  tree  far  away  in  the  forest,  it  thundered  down 
on  him,  and  kept  him  down  for  two  or  three  days  till  he  was 
discovered.  To  get  to  him  we  went  in  a  small  canoe,  and 
paddled  ourselves  with  shingles  or  wooden  tiles,  used  to  cover 
roofs.  On  the  way  I  saw  a  man  on  a  roof  fiddling ;  only  a  bit 
of  the  roof  was  above  water.  He  was  waiting  for  deliver 
ance.  Many  and  strange  indeed  were  all  the  scenes  and  inci 
dents  of  that  inundation,  and  marvellous  the  legends  which 
were  told  of  other  freshets  in  the  days  of  yore. 

I  never  could  learn  to  play  cards.  Destiny  forbade  it, 
and  always  stepped  in  promptly  to  stop  all  such  proceedings. 
One  night  Sandford  and  friends  sat  down  to  teach  me  poker, 
when  bang,  bang,  went  a  revolver  outside,  and  a  bullet  buried 
itself  in  the  door  close  by  me.  A  riotous,  evil-minded  darkey, 
who  attended  to  my  washing,  had  got  into  a  fight,  and  was 
forthwith  conveyed  to  the  Bull-pen,  or  military  prison.  I 
was  afraid  lest  I  might  lose  my  shirts,  and  so  "  visited  him  " 
next  day  and  found  him  in  irons,  but  reading  a  newspaper  at 
his  ease.  From  him  I  learned  the  address  of  "  the  coloured 
lady  "  who  had  my  underclothing. 

The  Bull-pen  was  a  picturesque  place — a  large  log  en 
closure,  full  of  strange  inmates,  such  as  wild  guerillas  in 


312  MEMOIRS. 

moccasins,  grey-back  Confederates  and  blue-coat  Federals 
guilty  of  many  a  murder,  arson,  and  much  horse-stealing, 
desolate  deserters,  often  deserving  pity — the  debris  of  a  four 
years'  war,  the  crumbs  of  the  great  loaf  fallen  to  the  dirt. 

Warm  weather  came  on,  and  I  sent  to  Philadelphia  for  a 
summer  suit  of  clothes.  It  came,  and  it  was  of  a  light  grey 
colour.  At  that  time  Oxford  "  dittos,"  or  a  suit  pareil  par- 
tout,  were  unknown  in  West  Virginia.  I  was  dressed  from 
head  to  foot  in  Confederate  grey.  Such  a  daring  defiance  of 
public  opinion,  coupled  with  my  mysterious  stealing  into  the 
rebel  country,  made  me  an  object  of  awe  and  suspicion — a 
kind  of  Sir  Grey  Steal ! 

There  was  at  that  time  in  Charleston  a  German  artillery 
regiment  which  really  held  the  town — that  is  to  say,  the 
height  which  commanded  it.  I  had  become  acquainted  with 
its  officers.  All  at  once  they  gave  me  the  cold  shoulder  and 
cut  me.  My  friend  Sandford  was  very  intimate  with  them. 
One  evening  he  asked  their  Colonel  why  they  scorned  me. 
The  Colonel  replied — 

"  Pecause  he's  a  tamned  repel.     Aferypody  knows  it." 

Sandford  at  once  explained  that  I  was  even  known  at 
Washington  as  a  good  Union  man,  and  had,  moreover,  trans 
lated  Heine,  adding  other  details. 

"  Gott  verdammich — liciss  !  "  cried  the  Colonel  in  amaze 
ment.  "  Is  dot  dor  Karl  Leland  vot  dranslate  do  ReiscUldcr  ? 
Herr  jo !  I  hafe  got  dat  very  pook  here  on  mem  table ! 
Look  at  it.  Bei  Gott !  here's  his  name !  Dot  is  der  crate 
Leland  vot  edit  de  Continental  Magazine!  Dot  moost  pe  a 
fery  deep  man.  Und  I  dink  he  vas  a  repel ! " 

The  next  morning  early  the  Colonel  sent  his  ambulance 
or  army  waggon  to  my  hotel  with  a  request  that  I  would  come 
and  take  breakfast  with  him.  It  was  a  bit  of  Heidelberg  life 
over  again.  We  punished  Rheinwein  and  lager-beer  in  quan 
tities.  There  were  old  German  students  among  the  officers, 
and  I  was  received  like  a  brother. 

At  last  Sandford  and  I  determined  to  return  to  the  East, 


LIFE  DURING  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  313 

There  was  in  the  hotel  a  coloured  waiter  named  Harrison. 
He  had  been  a  slave,  but  "  a  gentleman's  gentleman,"  was 
rather  dignified,  and  allowed  no  ordinary  white  man  to  joke 
with  him.  On  the  evening  before  my  departure  I  said  to 
him — 

"  Well,  Harrison,  I  hope  that  you  haven't  quite  so  bad  an 
opinion  of  me  as  the  other  people  here  seem  to  have." 

He  manifested  at  once  a  really  violent  emotion.  Dashing 
something  to  the  ground,  he  cried — 

"  Mr.  Leland,  you  never  did  anything  contrary  to  a  gen 
tleman.  I  always  maintained  it.  Now  please  tell  me  the 
truth.  Is  it  true  that  you're  a  great  friend  of  Jeff  Davis  ?  " 

"  Damn  Jeff  Davis ! "  I  replied. 

"  And  you  ain't  a  major  in  the  Confederate  service  ?  " 

"  I'm  a  clear-down  Abolitionist,  and  was  born  one." 

"  And  you  ain't  had  no  goings  on  with  the  rebels  up  the 
river  to  bring  back  the  Confederacy  here  ?  " 

"  Devil  a  dealing." 

And  therewith  I  explained  how  it  was  that  I  went  un 
harmed  up  into  the  rebels'  country,  and  great  was  the  joy  of 
Harrison,  who,  as  I  found,  had  taken  my  part  valiantly  against 
those  who  suspected  me. 

There  was  a  droll  comedy  the  next  day  on  board  the 
steamboat  on  which  I  departed.  A  certain  Mr.  H.,  who  had 
been  a  rebel  and  recanted  at  the  eleventh  hour  and  become 
a  Federal  official,  requested  everybody  on  board  not  to  notice 
me.  Sandford  learned  it  all,  and  chuckled  over  it.  But  the 
captain  and  mate  and  crew  were  all  still  rebels  at  heart. 
Great  was  my  amazement  at  being  privately  informed  by  the 
steward  that  the  captain  requested  as  a  favour  that  I  would 
sit  by  him  at  dinner  and  share  a  bottle  of  wine.  I  did  so, 
and  while  I  remained  on  board  was  treated  as  an  honoured 
guest. 

And  now  I  would  here  distinctly  declare  that,  apart  from 
my  political  principles,  from  which  I  never  swerved,  I  always 
found  the  rebels — that  is,  Southern  and  Western  men  with 


MEMOIRS. 

whom  I  had  had  intimate  dealings — without  one  exception 
personally  the  most  congenial  and  agreeable  people  whom  I 
had  ever  met.  There  was  not  to  be  found  among  them  what 
in  England  is  known  as  a  prig.  They  were  natural  and  gen 
tlemanly,  even  down  to  the  poorest  and  most  uneducated. 

One  day  Sam  Fox  came  to  me  and  asked  me  to  use  my 
influence  with  the  Cannelton  Company  to  get  him  employ 
ment  at  their  works. 

"  Sam,"  I  replied,  "  I  can't  do  it.  It  is  only  three  weeks 
now,  when  you  were  employed  at  another  place,  that  you  tried 
to  stuff  the  overseer  into  the  furnace,  and  if  the  men  had  not 
prevented,  you  would  have  burned  him  up  alive." 

"  Yes,"  replied  Sam,  "  but  he  had  called  me  a son 

of- 

"  Very  good,"  I  answered  ;  "  and  if  he  had  called  me  that, 
I  should  have  done  the  same.  But  I  don't  think,  if  I  had 
done  it,  I  should  ever  have  expected  to  be  employed  again  on 
another  furnace.  You  see,  Samuel,  my  son,  that  these  North 
ern  men  have  very  queer  notions — very" 

Sam  was  quite  convinced. 

At  Cincinnati  a  trifling  but  droll  incident  occurred.  I 
do  not  set  myself  up  for  a  judge  of  wines,  but  I  have  natu 
rally  a  delicate  sense  of  smell  or  flair,  though  not  the  extraor 
dinary  degree  in  which  my  brother  possessed  it,  who  never 
drank  wine  at  all.  He  was  the  first  person  who  ever,  in 
printed  articles  or  in  lectures,  insisted  that  South  New  Jersey 
was  suitable  for  wine-growing.  At  the  hotel  Sandford  asked 
me  if  I  could  tell  any  wine  by  the  taste.  I  replied  No,  but  I 
would  try ;  so  they  gave  me  a  glass  of  some  kind,  and  I  said 
that  honestly  I  could  only  declare  that  I  should  say  it  was 
Portugal  common  country  wine,  but  I  must  be  wrong.  Then 
Sandford  showed  the  bottle,  and  the  label  declared  it  to  be 
grown  in  Ohio.  The  next  day  he  came  to  me  and  said,  "  I 
believe  that  after  all  you  know  a  great  deal  about  wine.  I 
told  the  landlord  what  you  said,  and  he  laughed,  and  said,  '  I 
had  not  the  American  wine  which  you  called  for,  and  so  I 


LIFE  DURING  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  315 

gave  you  a  cheap  but  unusual  Portuguese  wine.'  "  This  wine 
is  neither  white  nor  red,  and  tastes  like  sherry  and  Burgundy 
mixed. 

At  Cincinnati,  Sandford  proposed  that  we  should  return 
by  way  of  Detroit  and  Niagara.  I  objected  to  the  expense, 
but  he,  who  knew  every  route  and  rate  by  heart,  explained  to 
me  that,  owing  to  the  competition  in  railway  rates,  it  would 
only  cost  me  six  shillings  (81.50)  more,  plus  $2.50  (ten  shil 
lings)  from  New  York  to  Philadelphia.  So  we  departed.  In 
Detroit  I  called  on  my  cousin,  Benjamin  Stimson  (the  S.  of 
"  Two  Years  before  the  Mast "),  and  found  him  a  prominent 
citizen.  So,  skirting  along  southern  Canada,  we  got  to  Niag 
ara,  and  thence  to  Albany  and  down  the  Hudson  to  New 
York,  and  so  on  to  Philadelphia. 

It  seems  to  me  now  that  at  this  time  all  trace  of  my 
former  life  and  self  had  vanished.  I  seemed  to  be  only 
prompt  to  the  saddle,  canoe-paddle,  revolver,  steamboat,  and 
railroad.  My  wife  said  that  after  this  and  other  periods  of 
Western  travel  I  was  always  for  three  weeks  as  wild  as  an 
Indian,  and  so  I  most  truly  and  unaffectedly  was.  I  did  not 
act  in  a  foolish  or  disorderly  manner  at  all,  but  Tennessee 
and  Elk  River  were  in  me.  Eobert  Hunt  and  Sam  Fox  and 
many  more  had  expressed  their  amazement  at  the  amount 
of  extremely  familiar  and  congenial  nature  which  they  had 
found  in  me,  and  they  were  quite  right.  Sam  and  Goshorn 
declared  that  I  was  the  only  Northern  man  whom  they  had 
ever  known  who  ever  learned  to  paddle  a  dug-out  correctly  ; 
but  as  I  was  obliged  to  do  this  sometimes  for  fifteen  hours 
a  day  nolens  volens,  it  is  not  remarkable  that  I  became  an 
expert. 

As  regards  the  real  unaffected  feeling  of  wildness  born  to 
savage  nature,  life,  and  association,  it  is  absolutely  as  differ 
ent  from  all  civilised  feeling  whatever  as  bird  from  fish ;  and 
it  very  rarely  happens  that  an  educated  man  ever  knows  what 
it  is.  What  there  is  of  it  in  me  which  Indians  recognise  is, 
I  believe,  entirely  due  to  hereditary  endowment. 


316  MEMOIRS. 

"  Zum  Wald,  zum  Wald,  steht  mir  mein  Sinn. 

So  einzig,  ach  !  so  cinzig  bin. 
Dort  lebt  man  frcundlich,  Icbt  man  froh, 
Und  nirgcnds,  nirgcnds  lebt  man  so." 

It  does  not  come  from  reading  or  culture — it  comes  of 
itself  by  nature,  or  not  at  all ;  nor  has  it  over-much  to  do 
with  thought.  Only  in  something  like  superstition  can  it 
find  expression,  but  that  must  be  childlike  and  sweet  and 
sincere,  and  without  the  giggling  with  which  such  subjects 
are  invariably  received  by  ladies  in  society. 

I  went  with  my  wife  and  her  mother  and  sister  to  pass 
some  time  at  Bethlehem,  in  Pennsylvania,  which  we  did  very 
pleasantly  at  a  country  inn.  It  is  a  very  interesting  town, 
where  a  peculiar  German  dialect  is  generally  spoken.  There 
was  a  very  respectable  wealthy  middle-aged  lady,  a  Pennsyl- 
vanian  by  birth,  who  avoided  meeting  us  at  table  because  she 
could  not  speak  English.  And  when  I  was  introduced  to 
her,  I  made  matters  worse  by  speaking  to  her  naturally  in 
broad  South  German,  whereupon  she  informed  me  that  she 
spoke  7/oc/i-Deutsch  !  But  I  made  myself  popular  among  the 
natives  with  my  German,  and  our  landlord  was  immensely 
proud  of  me.  I  wasn't  "  one  of  dem  city  fellers  dat  shames 
demselfs  of  de  Dutch,"  not  I.  "  Vy,  I  dells  you  vot,  mein 
Gott!  he'sj»ro«fZof  it!" 

I  ended  the  summer  at  beautiful  Lenox,  in  Massachusetts, 
in  the  charming  country  immortalised  in  "  Elsie  Venner  " ; 
of  which  work,  and  my  letter  on  it  to  Dr.  Holmes,  and  my 
conversation  with  him  thereanent,  I  might  fill  a  chapter. 
But  "  let  us  not  talk  about  them  but  pass  on."  I  returned 
to  Philadelphia  and  to  my  father's  house,  where  I  remained 
one  year. 

I  had  for  a  long  time,  at  intervals,  been  at  work  on  a  book 
to  be  entitled  the  "  Origin  of  American  Popular  Phrases." 
I  had  scissored  from  newspapers,  collected  from  negro  min 
strels  and  Western  rustics,  and  innumerable  New  England 
friends,  as  well  as  books  and  old  songs  and  comic  almariacs 


LIFE  DURING  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  317 

and  the  like,  a  vast  amount  of  valuable  material.  This  work, 
which  had  cost  me  altogether  a  full  year's  labour,  had  been 
accepted  by  a  New  York  publisher,  and  was  in  the  printer's 
hands.  I  never  awaited  anything  with  such  painful  anxiety 
as  I  did  this  publication,  for  I  had  never  been  in  such  straits 
nor  needed  money  so  much,  and  it  seemed  as  if  the  more 
earnestly  I  sought  for  employment  the  more  it  evaded  me. 
And  then  almost  as  soon  as  my  manuscript  was  in  the 
printer's  hands  his  office  was  burned,  and  the  work  perished, 
for  I  had  not  kept  a  copy. 

It  was  a  great  loss,  but  from  the  instant  when  I  heard  of 
it  to  this  day  I  never  had  five  minutes'  trouble  over  it,  and 
more  probably  not  one.  I  had  done  my  very  lest  to  make  a 
good  book  and  some  money,  and  could  do  no  more.  When  I 
was  a  very  small  boy  I  was  deeply  impressed  with  the  story  in 
the  "  Arabian  lights  "  of  the  prisoner  who  knew  that  he  was 
going  to  be  set  free  because  a  rat  had  run  away  with  his 
dinner.  So  I,  at  the  age  of  seven,  announced  to  my  father 
that  I  believed  that  whenever  a  man  had  bad  luck,  good  was 
sure  to  follow,  which  opinion  he  did  not  accept.  And  to  this 
day  I  hold  it,  because,  reckoning  up  the  chances  of  life,  it  is 
true  for  most  people.  At  any  rate,  I  derived  some  comfort 
from  the  fact  that  the  accident  was  reported  in  all  the  news 
papers  all  over  the  Union. 

About  the  1st  of  July,  1866,  we  left  my  father's  house  to 
go  to  Cape  May,  where  we  remained  for  two  months.  In 
September  we  went  to  a  very  good  boarding-house  in  Phila 
delphia,  kept  by  Mrs.  Sandgren.  She  possessed  and  showed 
me  Tegner's  original  manuscript  of  "Anna  and  Axel."  I 
confess  that  I  never  cared  over-much  for  Tegner,  and  that  I 
infinitely  prefer  the  original  Icelandic  Saga  of  Frithiof  to  his 
sago-gruel  imitation  of  strong  soup. 


VI. 

LIFE    ON   THE   PRESS. 

18GG-1869. 

I  become  managing  editor  of  John  W.  Forney's  Press  —  Warwick  the 
King-maker  —  The  dead  duck  —  A  trip  to  Kansas  in  the  old  buffalo 
days  —  Miss  Susan  Blow,  of  St.  Louis  —  The  Iron  Mountain  of  Mis 
souri  —  A  strange  dream  —  Rattlesnakes  —  Kaw  Indians  —  I  am  adopted 
into  the  tribe  —  Grand  war-dance  and  ceremonies  —  Open-air  lodg 
ings  —  Prairie  fires  —  In  a  dangerous  country  —  Indian  victims  —  II. 
M.  Stanley  —  Lieutenant  Hesselberger  —  I  shoot  a  buffalo  —  Wild  rid 
ing  —  In  a  herd  —  Indian  white  men  —  Ringing  for  the  carriage  with 
a  rifle  —  Brigham  the  driver  —  General  and  Mrs.  Custer  —  Three  thou 
sand  miles  in  a  railway  car  —  How  '•  Hans  Breitrnann's  "  ballads 
came  to  be  published  —  The  publisher  thinks  that  he  cannot  sell 
more  than  a  thousand  of  the  book  —  I  establish  a  weekly  newspaper 
—  Great  success  —  Election  rioting  —  Oratory  and  revolvers  —  How 
the  meek  and  lowly  Republicans  revolvered  the  Democrats  —  The 
dead  duck  and  what  befell  him  who  bore  it  —  I  make  two  thousand 
German  votes  by  giving  Forney  a  lesson  in  their  language  —  Freiheit 
und  Gleichheit  —  The  Winnebago  Indian  chief  —  Horace  Greelcy  — 
Maretzek  the  Bohemian  —  Fanny  Janauschek  and  the  Czech  lan 
guage  —  A  narrow  escape  from  death  on  the  Switchback  —  Death  of 
my  father  —  Another  Western  railway  excursion  —  A  quaint  old 
darkey  —  Chicago  —  I  threaten  to  raise  the  rent  —  General  influence 
of  Chicago  —  St.  Paul,  Minnesota  —  A  seven  days'  journey  through 
the  wilderness  —  The  Canadian  —  Smudges  —  Indians  —  A  foot  jour 
ney  through  the  woods  —  Indian  pack-bearers  —  Mayor  Stewart  —  I 
rifle  a  grave  of  silver  ornaments  —  Isle  Royal  e  —  My  brother,  Henry 
Perry  Leland  —  The  press  —  John  Forney  carries  Grant's  election, 
and  declares  that  I  really  did  the  work  —  The  weekly  press  and 
George  Francis  Train  —  Grant's  appointments  —  My  sixth  introduc 
tion  to  the  General—  Garibaldi's  dagger. 


had  not  lived  at  Mrs.  Sandgren's  more  than  a  week 
when  George  Boker,  knowing  my  need,  spoke  to   Colonel 


LIFE  ON  THE  PRESS.  319 

John  Forney,  who  was  at  that  time  not  only  Secretary  of  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States,  but  the  proprietor  of  the  Chron 
icle  newspaper  in  Washington,  of  the  Press  in  Philadelphia, 
"  both  daily,"  as  the  Colonel  once  said,  which  very  simple 
and  commonplace  expression  became  a  popular  by-word. 
Colonel  Forney  wanted  a  managing  editor  for  the  Press,  and, 
as  I  found  in  due  time,  not  so  much  a  man  of  enterprise  and 
a  leader — that  he  supplied — nor  yet  one  to  practically  run 
the  journal — that  his  son  John,  a  young  man  of  eighteen,  sup 
plied — so  much  as  a  steady,  trustworthy,  honest  pivot  on  which 
the  compass  could  turn  during  his  absences — and  that  /  sup 
plied.  I  must,  to  explain  the  situation,  add  gently  that 
John,  who  could  not  help  it  considering  his  experiences, 
was,  to  put  it  mildly,  a  little  irregular,  rendering  a  steady 
manager  absolutely  necessary.  It  was  a  great  pity,  for  John 
the  junior  was  extremely  clever  as  a  practical  managing  edi 
tor,  remembering  everything,  and  knowing — what  I  never 
did  or  could — all  the  little  tricks,  games,  and  wiles  of  all  the 
reporters  and  others  employed. 

Colonel  Forney  was  such  a  remarkable  character,  and  had 
such  a  great  influence  for  many  years  in  American  politics, 
that  as  I  had  a  great  deal  to  do  with  him — very  much  more 
than  was  generally  known — at  a  time  when  he  struck  his 
greatest  political  coup,  in  which,  as  he  said,  I  greatly  aided 
him,  I  will  here  dwell  on  him  a  space.  Before  I  knew  him 
I  called  him  Warwick  the  King-maker,  for  it  was  generally 
admitted  that  it  was  to  his  intense  hatred  of  Buchanan, 
added  to  his  speech-making,  editing,  and  tremendously  vig 
orous  and  not  always  over-scrupulous  intriguing,  that  "  Ten- 
cent  Jimmy"  owed  his  defeat.  At  this  time,  in  all  presiden 
tial  elections,  Pennsylvania  turned  the  scale,  and  John  For 
ney  could  and  did  turn  Pennsylvania  like  a  Titan ;  and  he 
frankly  admitted  that  he  owed  the  success  of  his  last  turn  to 
me,  as  I  shall  in  time  relate. 

Forney's  antipathies  were  always  remarkably  well  placed. 
He  hated  Buchanan;  also,  for  certain  personal  reasons,  he 


320  MEMOIRS. 

hated  Simon  Cameron ;  and  finally  it  came  to  pass  that  he 
hated  Andrew  Johnson  with  a  hatred  of  twenty-four  carats — 
an  aquafortis  detestation — and  for  a  most  singular  cause. 

One  night  when  this  "  President  by  the  pistol,  and  small 
est  potato  in  the  American  garden  of  liberty,"  was  making 
one  of  his  ribald  speeches,  after  having  laid  out  Horace  Gree- 
ley,  some  one  in  the  crowd  cried — 

"  Now  give  us  John  Forney  !  " 

With  an  air  of  infinite  contempt  the  President  ex 
claimed — 

"  I  don't  waste  my  powder  on  dead  ducks." 

He  had  better  have  left  that  word  unsaid,  for  it  ruined 
him.  It  woke  Colonel  John  Forney  up  to  the  very  highest 
pitch  of  his  fighting  "  Injun,"  or,  as  they  say  in  Pennsylva 
nia,  his  "  Dutch."  He  had  always  been  to  that  hour  a  genial 
man,  like  most  politicians,  a  little  too  much  given  to  the  so 
cial  glass.  But  from  that  date  of  the  dead  duck  he  became 
"  total  abstinence,"  and  concentrated  all  his  faculties  and 
found  all  his  excitement  in  vengeance  hot  and  strong,  with 
out  a  grain  of  sugar.  In  which  I  gladly  sympathised  and 
aided,  for  I  detested  Johnson  as  a  renegade  Copperhead,  or 
rather  venomous  toad  to  the  South,  who  wished  with  all  his 
soul  to  undo  Lincoln's  work  and  bring  in  the  Confederacy. 
And  I  believe,  on  my  life  and  soul,  that  if  John  Forney  had 
not  defeated  him,  we  should  have  had  such  disasters  as  are 
now  inconceivable,  the  least  of  them  being  a  renewal  of  the 
war.  Johnson  had  renegaded  from  the  Confederacy  because, 
being  only  a  tailor,  he  had  ranked  as  a  "  low  white,"  or  some 
thing  despised  even  by  "  quality  "  negroes.  The  Southern 
aristocracy  humbugged  him  by  promising  that  if  he  would 
betray  the  Union  he  should  be  regarded  as  one  of  themselves, 
by  which  very  shallow  cheat  he  was — as  a  snob  would  be — 
easily  caught,  and  in  due  time  cast  off. 

I  had  been  but  a  few  weeks  on  the  Press,  and  all  was 
going  on  well,  when  one  morning  the  Colonel  abruptly  asked 
me  if  I  could  start  in  the  morning  for  Fort  Eiley,  of  which 


LIFE  ON  THE  PRESS.  321 

all  I  knew  was  that  it  constituted  an  extreme  frontier  station 
in  Kansas.  There  was  to  be  a  Kansas  Pacific  railway  laid 
out,  and  a  large  party  of  ra^road  men  intended  to  go  as  far 
as  the  last  surveyor's  camp.  Of  course,  a  few  editors  had 
been  invited  to  write  up  the  road,  and  these  in  turn  sent 
some  one  in  their  place.  I  knew  at  once  that  I  should  have 
something  like  the  last  year's  wild  life  over  again,  and  I  was 
delighted.  I  borrowed  John  Forney's  revolver,  provided  an 
agate-point  and  "  manifold  paper "  for  duplicate  letters  to 
our  "  two  papers,  both  daily,"  and  at  the  appointed  hour  was 
at  the  railway  station.  There  had  been  provided  for  us  the 
director's  car,  a  very  large  and  extremely  comfortable  vehi 
cle,  with  abundance  of  velvet  "settees"  or  divan  sofas,  with 
an  immense  stock  of  lobster-salad,  cold  croquettes,  game,  with 
"  wines  of  every  fineness,"  and  excellent  waiters.  The  excur 
sion,  indeed,  cost  £1,000 ;  but  it  was  made  to  pay,  and  that 
to  great  profit. 

We  were  all  a  very  genial,  congenial  party  of  easy-going 
geniuses.  There  was  Hassard,  the  "  day  editor  "  of  the  New 
York  Tribune,  who  had  been  with  me  on  the  Oyclopcedia^  and 
to  whom  I  was  much  attached,  for  he  was  a  gentlemanly 
scholar,  and  withal  had  seen  enough  of  life  on  the  Tribune 
to  hold  his  own  with  any  man ;  and  Captain  William  Colton, 
who  had  been  with  me  in  Tennessee ;  Robert  Lamborn,  who 
had  studied  science  in  Germany,  and  was  now  a  railroad  man, 
and  many  more  who  are  recorded  in  my  pamphlet,  "  Three 
Thousand  Miles  in  a  Railway  Car,"  and  my  old  associate, 
Caspar  Souder,  of  the  Bulletin.  This  excursion  was  destined, 
in  connection  with  this  pamphlet,  to  have  a  marvellous  effect 
on  my  future  life. 

In  every  town  where  we  paused — and  our  pauses  were  fre 
quent,  as  we  travelled  very  much  on  the  "  go-as-you-please  " 
plan — we  were  received  by  the  authorities  with  honour  and 
speeches  and  invited  to  dinners  or  drinks.  Our  conductors 
were  courtesy  itself.  One  afternoon  one  of  them  on  a  rough 
bit  of  road  said,  "  Gentlemen,  whenever  you  wish  to  open  a 


322  MEMOIRS. 

bottle  of  champagne,  please  to  pull  the  cord  and  stop  the 
train.  You  can  then  drink  without  spilling  your  wine." 

So  we  went  to  Chicago  and  St.  Louis,  where  we  were  enter 
tained  by  Mr.  Blow,  and  where  I  became  acquainted  with  his 
daughter  Susan.  She  was  then  a  beautiful  blonde,  and,  as  I 
soon  found,  very  intelligent  and  cultured.  She  was  long 
years  afterwards  busy  in  founding  philanthropic  schools  in 
St.  Petersburg,  Russia,  when  I  was  there — a  singularly  noble 
woman.  However,  at  this  time  neither  of  us  dreamed  of  the 
school-keeping  which  we  were  to  experience  in  later  years. 
At  this  soiree,  and  indeed  for  the  excursion  the  next  day,  we 
had  as  a  guest  Mr.  Walter,  of  the  London  Times. 

The  next  day  we  had  a  special  train  and  an  excursion  of 
ladies  and  gentlemen  to  visit  the  marvellous  Knob  or  Iron 
Mountain.  This  is  an  immense  conical  hill  with  a  deep  sur 
rounding  dale,  beyond  which  rise  other  hills  all  of  nearly 
solid  iron.  Returning  that  evening  in  the  train,  a  very 
strange  event  took  place.  There  was  with  us  a  genial,  pleas 
ant,  larky  young  fellow,  one  of  the  famous  family  of  the 
MacCooks.  When  the  war  came  on  he  was  at  college — went 
into  the  army,  fought  hard — rose  to  be  captain,  and  then 
after  the  peace  went  back  to  the  college  and  finished  his 
studies.  This  was  the  "event."  We  were  telling  stories  of 
dreams ;  when  it  came  to  my  turn  I  said  : — 

"  In  1860  I  had  never  been  in  Ohio,  nor  did  I  know  any 
thing  about  it.  One  night — it  was  at  Reading,  Pennsylvania 
— I  fell  asleep.  I  dreamed  that  I  woke  up,  rose  from  the  bed, 
went  to  the  match-box,  struck  a  light,  and  while  it  burned 
observed  the  room,  which  was  just  the  same  as  when  I  had 
retired.  The  match  went  out.  I  lit  another,  when  what  was 
my  amazement  to  observe  that  everything  in  the  room  had 
changed  its  colour  to  a  rich  brown !  Looking  about  me,  I 
saw  on  a  kind  of  etagere  scores  of  half-burned  candles  in 
candlesticks,  as  if  there  had  been  a  ball.  I  lighted  nearly  all 
of  them.  Hearing  a  sound  as  of  sweeping  and  the  knocking 
of  a  broom-handle  without,  I  went  into  the  next  room,  which 


LIFE  ON  THE  PRESS.  323 

was  the  hall  where  the  dance  had  been  held.  A  very  stupid 
fellow  was  sweeping  it  out.  I  asked  him  where  I  was.  He 
could  not  reply  intelligently.  There  came  into  the  hall  a 
bustling,  pleasant  woman,  rather  small,  who  I  saw  at  a  glance 
was  the  housekeeper.  She  said  something  to  the  man  as  to 
the  room's  being  dark.  I  remarked  that  there  was  light 
enough  in  my  room,  for  I  had  lit  all  the  candles.  She  cried, 
laughing, '  What  extravagance  ! '  I  answered, '  My  dear  little 
woman,  what  does  a  candle  or  two  signify  to  you?  Now 
please  tell  me  where  I  am.  Last  night  I  went  to  sleep  in 
Eeading,  Pennsylvania.  Where  am  I  now?'  She  replied 
(and  of  this  word  I  was  not  sure),  '  In  Columbus,  Ohio.'  I 
asked  if  there  was  any  prominent  man  in  the  place  who  was 
acquainted  with  Philadelphia,  and  who  might  aid  me  to  re 
turn.  She  reflected,  and  said  that  Judge  Duer  and  his  two 
daughters  (of  whom  I  had  never  heard)  had  just  returned 
from  the  East." 

Here  MacCook  interrupted  me  eagerly :  "  You  were  not 
in  Columbus,  but  in  Dayton,  Ohio.  And  it  was  not  Judge 
Duer,  but  Judge  Duey,  with  his  two  daughters,  who  was  that 
summer  in  the  East."  I  went  on : — 

"  I  left  the  room  and  went  into  the  hall.  I  came  to  the 
front  door.  Far  down  below  me  I  saw  a  winding  river  and 
a  steamboat." 

Here  MacCook  spoke  again:  "  That  was  surely  Dayton. 
I  know  the  house  and  the  view.  But  it  could  not  have  been 
Columbus."  I  went  on  : — 

"  I  went  downstairs  too  far  by  mistake  into  the  cellar. 
There  I  found  a  man  sawing  wood.  I  went  up  again.  [Pray 
observe  that  a  year  after,  when  I  went  West,  this  very  incident 
occurred  one  morning  in  Cincinnati,  Ohio.]  I  found  in  the 
bar-room  three  respectable-looking  men.  I  told  them  my 
story.  One  said  to  the  others,  '  He  is  always  the  same  old 
fellow  ! '  I  stared  at  him  in  amazement.  He  held  out  one 
hand  and  moved  the  other  as  if  fiddling.  Monotonous 
creaking  sounds  followed,  and  I  gradually  awoke.  The  same 


324  MEMOIRS. 

sounds  continued,  but  they  were  caused  by  the  grasshoppers 
and  tree-toads,  who  pipe  monotonously  all  night  long  in 
America." 

Nothing  ever  came  of  the  dream,  but  it  all  occurred  ex 
actly  as  I  describe  it.  I  have  had  several  quite  as  strange. 
Immediately  after  I  had  finished  my  narration,  some  one,  al 
luding  to  our  party,  asked  if  there  was  any  one  present  who 
could  sing  "  Hans  Breitmann's  Barty,"  and  I  astonished  them 
not  a  little  by  proclaiming  that  I  was  the  author,  and  by  sing 
ing  it. 

We  went  on  to  Leavenworth,  where  we  had  a  dinner  at 
the  hotel  which  was  worthy  of  Paris.  We  had,  for  example, 
prairie  pullets  or  half-grown  grouse,  wild  turkeys  and  tender 
venison.  Thence  to  Fort  Riley,  and  so  on  in  waggons  to  the 
last  surveyor's  camp.  I  forget  where  it  was  on  the  route  that 
we  stopped  over-night  at  a  fort,  where  I  found  some  old 
friends  and  made  new  ones.  A  young  officer — Lieutenant 
Brown,  I  think — gave  me  a  bed  in  his  cabin.  His  ceiling  was 
made  of  canvas.  For  weeks  he  had  heard  a  great  rattlesnake 
moving  about  on  it.  One  day  he  had  made  a  hole  in  the  ceil 
ing  and  put  into  it  a  great  fierce  tom-cat.  The  cat  "  went 
for  "  the  snake  and  there  was  an  awful  row.  After  a  time 
the  cat  came  out  looking  like  a  devil  with  every  hair  on  end, 
made  straight  for  the  prairie,  and  was  never  heard  of  again. 
Neither  was  the  snake.  They  had  finished  one  another.  On 
another  occasion,  when  sitting  in  a  similar  cabin,  my  gentle 
hostess,  an  officer's  wife,  whom  I  had  known  a  few  years  be 
fore  as  a  beauty  in  society,  remarked  that  she  had  two  large 
rattlesnakes  in  her  ceiling,  and  that  if  we  would  be  silent  we 
might  hear  them  crawling  about.  They  could  not  be  taken 
out  without  rebuilding  the  roof. 

Captain  Colton  had  just  recovered  from  a  very  bad  attack 
of  fever  and  ague,  and,  being  young,  had  the  enormous  appe 
tite  which  follows  weeks  of  quinine.  I  saw  him  this  day  eat 
a  full  meal  of  beefsteaks,  and  then  immediately  after  devour 
another,  at  Brown's,  of  buffalo-meat.  The  air  of  the  Plains 


LIFE  ON  THE  PRESS.  325 

causes  incredible  hunger.  We  all  played  a  good  knife  and 
fork. 

About  twilight-tide  there  came  in  a  very  gentlemanly 
Catholic  priest.  I  was  told  that  he  was  a  roving  missionary, 
lie  led  a  charmed  life,  for  he  went  to  visit  the  wildest  tribes, 
and  was  everywhere  respected.  I  conversed  with  him  in 
French.  After  a  while  he  spread  his  blanket,  lay  down  on 
the  floor  and  slept  till  morning,  when  he  read  his  prayers  and 
departed. 

The  next  day  the  fort  square  was  full  of  Kaw  Indians,  all 
in  savage  array,  about  to  depart  for  their  autumnal  buffalo- 
hunt.  I  met  one  venerable  heathen  with  his  wife  and  babe, 
with  whom  I  made  genial  acquaintance.  I  asked  the  wife 
the  name  for  a  whip ;  she  replied  IPmeergashee ;  a  pony  was 
shoonya,  the  nose  hin,  and  a  woman  shimmy -shindy !  I 
bought  his  whip  for  a  dollar.  The  squaw  generously  offered 
to  throw  in  the  baby,  which  I  declined,  and  we  all  laughed 
and  parted. 

I  went  to  the  camp,  and  there  the  whole  party,  seeing  my 
curious  whip,  went  at  the  Kaws  to  buy  theirs.  Bank-bills 
were  our  only  currency  then,  and  the  Indians  knew  there  were 
such  things  as  counterfeits.  They  consulted  together,  eyed 
us  carefully,  and  then  every  man  as  he  received  his  dollar 
brought  it  to  me  for  approval.  By  chance  I  knew  the  Pawnee 
word  for  "  good  "  (  Washitaiv),  and  they  also  knew  it.  Then 
came  a  strange  wild  scene.  I  spoke  to  the  chief,  and  point 
ing  to  my  whip  said, "  B'meergashee"  and  indicating  a  woman 
and  a  pony,  repeated,  "Shimmy-shindy,  shoonga-hin"  inti 
mating  that  its  use  was  to  chastise  women  and  ponies  by  hit 
ting  them  on  the  nose.  Great  was  the  amazement  and  delight 
of  the  Kaws,  who  roared  with  laughter,  and  their  chief  curi 
ously  inquired,  "  You  Kaw  ?  "  To  which  I  replied,  "  0, 
nitchce,  me  Kaw,  wasliitd  good  Injun  me."  He  at  once  em 
braced  me  with  frantic  joy,  as  did  the  others,  to  the  great 
amazement  of  my  friends.  A  wild  circular  dance  was  at  once 
improvised  to  celebrate  my  reception  into  the  tribe ;  at  which 
15 


326  MEMOIRS. 

our  driver  Brigham  dryly  remarked  that  he  didn't  wonder 
they  were  glad  to  get  me,  for  I  was  the  first  Injun  ever  seen 
in  that  tribe  with  a  whole  shirt  on  him.  This  was  the  order 
of  proceedings  : — I  stood  in  the  centre  and  sang  wildly  the 
following  song,  which  was  a  great  favourite  with  our  party, 
and  all  joining  in  the  chorus  : — 

I  slew  the  chief  of  the  Muscolgee  ; 
I  burnt  his  squaw  at  the  blasted  tree  ! 
By  the  hind-legs  I  tied  up  the  cur, 
He  had  no  time  to  fondle  on  her. 

Chorus. 

Hoo  !  hoo  !  hoo  !  the  Muscolgee  ! 
Wah,  wah,  wah  !  the  blasted  tree  ! 

A  faggot  from  the  blasted  tree 
Fired  the  lodge  of  the  Muscolgee  ; 
His  sinews  served  to  string  my  bow 
When  bent  to  lay  his  brethren  low. 

Chorus. 

Hoo  !  hoo  !  hoo  !  the  Muscolgee  ! 
Wah,  wah,  wah !  the  blasted  tree  ! 

I  stripped  his  skull  all  naked  and  bare, 
And  here's  his  skull  with  a  tuft  of  hair  ! 
His  heart  is  in  the  eagle's  maw, 
His  bloody  bones  the  wolf  doth  gnaw. 

Chorus. 

Hoo  !  hoo  !  hoo  !  the  Muscolgee  ! 
Wah,  wah,  wah  !  the  blasted  tree ! 

The  Indians  yelled  and  drummed  at  the  Reception  Dance. 
"  Now  you  good  Kaw — Good  Injun  you  be — all  same  me," 
said  the  chief.  Hassard  and  Lamborn  cracked  time  with 
their  whips,  and,  in  short,  we  made  a  grand  circular  row ;  truly 
it  was  a  wondrous  striking  scene !  From  that  day  I  was  called 
the  Kaw  chief,  even  by  Hassard  in  his  letters  to  the  Tribune, 
in  which  he  mentioned  that  in  scenes  of  excitement  I  rode 
and  whooped  like  a  savage.  It  may  be  so — /  never  noticed 
it ;  perhaps  he  exaggerated,  but  I  must  admit  that  I  do  like 


LIFE  ON  THE  PRESS.  327 

Indians,  and  they  like  me.  We  took  ambulances  or  strong 
covered  army-waggons  and  pushed  on.  We  were  now  well 
out  on  the  plains.  All  day  long  we  passed  prairie-dog  villages 
and  saw  antelopes  bounding  afar.  At  night  we  stopped  at 
the  hotel  Alia  Fresca,  or  slept  in  the  open  air.  It  was  per 
fectly  delightful,  though  in  November.  Far  in  the  distance 
many  prairie  fires  stretched  like  miles  of  blazing  serpents  over 
the  distance.  I  thought  of  the  innumerable  camp-fires  be 
fore  the  battle  of  Gettysburg,  and  determined  that  the  two 
were  among  the  most  wonderful  sights  of  my  life.  We  rose 
very  early  in  the  morning,  by  grey  light,  and  after  a  drink  of 
whisky  pushed  on.  I  may  here  mention  that  from  1863  for 
six  years  I  very  rarely  indeed  tasted  any  intoxicant. 

So  we  went  on  till  we  reached  the  last  surveyor's  camp. 
We  had  not  been  there  half  an  hour  before  a  man  came  in 
declaring  that  he  had  just  saved  his  scalp,  having  seen  a 
party  of  Apaches  in  their  war-paint,  but  luckily  hid  himself 
before  they  discovered  him.  It  was  evident  that  we  had 
now  got  beyond  civilisation.  Already,  on  the  way,  we  had 
seen  ranches  which  had  been  recently  burned  by  the  Indians, 
who  had  killed  their  inmates.  One  man,  observing  my  Kaw 
whip,  casually  remarked  that  as  I  was  fond  of  curiosities  he 
was  sorry  that  he  had  not  kept  six  arrows  which  he  had 
lately  pulled  out  of  a  man  whom  he  had  found  lying  dead  in 
the  road,  and  who  had  just  been  shot  by  the  Indians. 

Within  this  same  hour  after  our  arrival  there  came  in  a 
Lieutenant  Hesselberger,  bringing  with  him  a  Mrs.  Box  and 
her  two  daughters,  one  about  sixteen  and  the  other  twelve. 
The  Indians  had  on  the  Texas  frontier  murdered  and  scalped 
her  husband  before  her  eyes,  burned  their  home,  and  carried 
the  three  into  captivity,  where  for  six  months  they  were  daily 
subjected  to  such  incredible  outrages  and  cruelty  that  it  was 
simply  a  miracle  that  they  survived.  As  it  was,  they  looked 
exactly  like  corpses.  Lieutenant  Hesselberger,  with  bravery 
beyond  belief,  having  heard  of  these  captives,  went  alone  to 
the  Indians  to  ransom  them.  Firstly,  they  fired  guns  unex- 


328  MEMOIRS. 

pectedly  close  to  his  head,  and  finding  that  he  did  not  start, 
brought  out  the  captives  and  subjected  them  to  the  extremes 
of  gross  abuse  before  his  eyes,  and  repeatedly  knocked  them 
down  with  clubs,  all  of  which  he  affected  to  disregard.  At 
last  the  price  was  agreed  on  and  he  took  them  away. 

In  after  years,  when  I  described  all  this  in  London  to 
Stanley,  the  African  explorer,  he  said,  "  Strange !  I,  too, 
was  there  that  very  day,  and  saw  those  women,  and  wrote  an 
account  of  it  to  the  New  York  Herald"  I  daresay  that  I 
met  and  talked  to  him  at  the  time  among  those  whom  we 
saw. 

Not  far  from  our  camp  there  was  a  large  and  well-popu 
lated  beaver-dam,  which  I  studied  with  great  interest.  It 
was  more  like  a  well  regulated  town  than  is  many  a  western 
mining  village.  I  do  not  wonder  that  Indians  regard  Qnali- 
beet,  the  beaver,  as  a  human  being  in  disguise.  N.  B. — The 
beaver  always,  when  he  cuts  a  stick,  sharpens  it  like  a  lead- 
pencil — which  indicates  an  artistic  nature. 

It  was  now  resolved  that  a  number  of  our  party  should 
go  into  the  Smoky  Ilill  country  to  attend  a  very  great  In 
dian  council,  while  the  rest  returned  home.  So  I  joined  the 
adventurers.  The  meeting  was  not  held,  for  I  belie.ve  the 
Indians  went  to  war.  But  we  rode  on.  One  morning  I  saw 
afar  a  few  black  specks,  and  thought  they  were  cattle.  And 
so  they  were,  but  the  free  cattle  of  the  plains,  or  buffaloes. 
That  evening,  as  we  were  out  of  meat,  Colton  and  others 
went  out  to  hunt  them,  and  had  a  fine  chase,  but  got 
nothing. 

The  next  morning  Colton  kindly  gave  me  his  chance — 
that  is,  he  resigned  to  me  a  splendid  black  horse  used  to  the 
business — and  most  of  us  went  to  the  field.  After  a  while,  or 
a  four  miles'  run,  we  came  up  with  a  number.  There  was  a 
fine  cow  singled  out  and  shot  at,  and  I  succeeded  in  putting 
a  ball  in  just  behind  the  shoulder.  Among  us  all  she  became 
beef,  and  an  expert  hunter  with  us,  whose  business  it  was  to 
supply  the  camp  with  meat,  skinned  and  butchered  her  and 


LIFE  ON  THE   PRESS. 


329 


cooked  a  meal  for  us  on  the  spot.  The  beef  was  deliriously 
tender  and  well  flavoured. 

]STow,  before  this  cooking,  in  the  excitement  of  the  chase, 
I  had  ridden  on  like  an  Indian,  as  Hassard  said  in  his  letter, 
whooping  like  one  all  alone  after  the  buffalo,  and  in  my  joy 
forgot  to  shake  the  spent  cartridge  out  of  my  Spenser  seven- 
shooter  carbine.  All  at  once  I  found  myself  right  in  the 
herd,  close  by  a  monstrous  bull,  whose  height  at  the  instant 
Avhen  he  turned  on  me  to  gore  me  seemed  to  be  about  a  hun 
dred  and  fifty  feet.  But  my  horse  was  used  to  this,  and 
swerved  with  incredible  tact  and  swiftness,  while  I  held  on. 
I  then  had  a  perfectly  close  shot,  not  six  feet  off,  under  the 
shoulder,  and  I  raised  the  carbine  and  pulled  trigger,  when 
it — ticked!  I  had  forgotten  the  dead  cartridge,  and  was  not 
used  to  the  arm  which  I  carried.  I  think  that  I  swore,  and 
if  I  did  not  I  am  sorry  for  it.  Before  I  could  arrange  my 
charge  the  buffaloes  were  far  away. 

However,  we  had  got  our  cow,  and  that  was  more  than 
we  really  needed.  At  any  rate,  I  had  shot  a  buffalo  and  had 


a  stupendous  run.  And  here  I  must  mention  that  while 
racing  and  whooping,  I  executed  the  most  insanely  foolish 
thing  I  ever  did  in  all  my  life,  which  astonished  the  hunter 
and  all  present  to  the  utmost.  I  was  at  the  top  of  a  declivity 


330  MEMOIRS. 

from  which  there  descended  a  flight  of  natural  stairs  of  rock, 
but  every  one  very  broad,  like  the  above  sketch. 

And  being  inspired  by  the  devil,  and  my  horse  not  object 
ing  at  all,  I  clattered  down  over  it  at  full  speed  a  la  Putnam. 
I  have  heard  that  Indians  do  this  very  boldly,  declaring  that 
it  is  perfectly  safe  if  the  rider  is  not  afraid,  and  I  am  quite 
sure  that  mine  must  have  been  an  Indian  horse.  I  hope  that 
no  one  will  think  that  I  have  put  forward  or  made  too  much 
of  these  trifling  boyish  tricks  of  recklessness.  They  are  of 
daily  occurrence  in  the  Wild  West  among  men  who  like  ex 
citement,  and  had  Robert  Hunt  been  among  us  there  would 
have  been  fun  indeed. 

So  we  turned  homewards,  for  the  Indian  Conference  had 
proved  a  failure.  We  had  for  our  driver  a  man  named  Brig- 
ham,  to  whom  I  had  taken  a  great  liking.  He  had  lived  as 
a  trader  among  the  wildest  Indians,  spoke  Spanish  fluently, 
and  knew  the  whole  Western  frontier  like  his  pocket.  The 
day  after  we  had  seen  Mrs.  Box  come  in,  I  was  praising  the 
braveness  of  Lieutenant  Ilesselberger  in  venturing  to  rescue 
her. 

"It  isn't  all  bravery  at  all,"  said  Brigham.  "  lie's  brave 
as  a  panther,  but  there's  more  in  it  than  that.  There  is 
about  one  man  in  a  hundred,  and  not  more,  who  can  go 
among  the  most  God-forsaken  devils  of  Injuns  and  never 
get  hurt.  The  Injuns  take  to  them  at  a  glance  and  love  'em . 
Fm  such  a  man,  and  I've  proved  it  often  enough,  God 
knows!  Lieutenant  Hesselberger  is  one,  and,"  he  added 
abruptly,  "  Mr.  Leland,  you're  another." 

"  What  makes  you  think  so?"  I  said,  greatly  surprised. 

"  'Cause  I've  watched  you.  You've  got  Injun  ways  that 
you  don't  know  of.  Didn't  I  notice  the  other  day,  when  the 
gentlemen  were  buying  the  whips  from  the  Kaws,  that  every 
Injun  took  a  squint,  and  then  came  straight  to  you  9  Why 
didn't  they  go  to  one  of  the  other  gentlemen?  Because 
they've  got  an  instinct  like  a  dog  for  their  friends,  and  for 
such  as  ?re." 


LIFE   ON  THE  PRESS.  331 

We  were  coming  to  Fort  Harker.  I  forget  how  it  all 
came  about,  but  we  found  ourselves  afoot,  with  a  mile  or  two 
to  walk,  carrying  our  guns,  carpet-bags,  and  petites  bagages, 
while  about  fifty  yards  ahead  or  more  there  was  Brigham 
driving  on  merrily  to  the  fort,  under  the  impression  that  we 
had  secured  other  conveyance. 

Captain  Colton  fired  his  carbine.  It  made  about  as  much 
noise  as  a  percussion-cap,  and  the  wind  was  from  Brigham 
toward  us.  Carried  away  by  an  impulse,  I  caught  Colonel 
Lamborn's  light  rifle  out  of  his  hand. 

"Great  God!"  he  cried,  "you  don't  mean -to  shoot  at 
him  ?  " 

"  If  you'll  insure  the  mules,"  I  said,  "  I  will  the  driver." 
My  calculation  was  to  send  a  bullet  so  near  to  Brigham  that 
he  could  hear  it  whizz,  but  not  to  touch  him.  It  was  not  so 
dangerous  as  the  shot  I  had  fired  over  Sam  Fox,  and  the 
"  spirit "  was  on  me  ! 

But  I  did  not  know  that  in  the  covered  waggon  sat  Has- 
sard  talking  with  Brigham,  their  faces  being,  as  Hassard  de 
clared,  just  about  six  inches  apart.  I  fired,  and  the  bullet 
passed  just  between  their  noses  ! 

Hassard  heard  the  whizz,  and  cried,  "  What's  that?  " 

"Injuns,  by  God!"  roared  Brigham,  forgetting  that  we 
had  left  the  Indian  country  two  days  behind  us.  "  Lie  down 
in  the  waggon  while  I  drive."  And  drive  he  did,  till  out  of 
gunshot,  and  then  putting  his  face  out,  turned  around,  and 
gave  in  full  desperate  cry  the  taunting  war-whoop  of  the 
Cheyennes.  It  was  a  beautiful  sight  that  of  Brigham's 
broad  red  face  wild  with  rage — and  his  great  gold  earrings 
and  Mexican  sombrero — turning  round  the  waggon  at  us  in 
defiance  like  Marmion  ! 

But  when  he  realised  that  we  had  fired  at  him,  just 

as  a  pack  of  d d  Apaches  might  have  done,  for  fun, 

to  stop  the  waggon,  his  expression  became  one  of  utter 
bewilderment.  As  I  came  up  I  thought  there  might  be 
a  shindy. 


332  MEMOIRS. 

"  Brigham,"  I  said  in  Spanish, "  cs  la  mano  o  el  navajo  ?  " 
[Is  it  to  be  hand,  or  knife  ?] 

Brigham  was  proud  of  his  Spanish ;  it  was  his  elegant 
accomplishment,  and  this  was  a  good  scene.  Grasping  my 
hand  cordially,  he  said,  "  La  mano."  Like  a  true  frontiers 
man,  he  felt  in  a  minute  the  grandeur  of  the  joke.  There 
was,  if  I  may  so  vulgarly  express  myself,  an  Indian-iiity  in 
it  which  appealed  to  his  deepest  feelings.  There  was  a  si 
lence  for  several  minutes,  which  he  broke  by  exclaiming — 

"  I've  driven  waggons  now  this  twelve  years  on  the  fron 
tier,  but  I  never  heard  before  of  tryin'  to  stop  the  waggon  by 
shootin'  at  the  driver." 

There  was  another  long  silent  pause,  when  he  resumed — 

"  I  wish  to  God  there  was  a  gulch  (ravine)  between  here 
and  the  fort !  I'd  upset  this  crowd  into  it  d d  quick  ! " 

That  evening  I  took  leave  of  Brigham.  I  drank  healths 
with  him  in  whisky,  and  shook  hands,  and  said — 

"  I  did  a  very  foolish  and  reckless  thing  to-day,  Brigham, 
when  I  shot  at  you,  and  I  am  sorry  for  it,  and  I  beg  your 
pardon.  Here  is  a  dagger  which  I  have  had  for  twenty-five 
years.  I  carried  it  all  over  Europe.  I  have  nothing  better 
to  give  you  ;  please  take  it.  And  when  you  stick  a  Greaser 
(Mexican)  with  it,  as  I  expect  you  will  do  some  day,  then 
think  of  me." 

The  tears  rose  to  his  eyes,  and  he  departed.  I  never  met 
him  again,  but  "  well  I  wot  "  he  ever  had  kindly  remem 
brance  of  me.  "We  were  to  be  guests  of  General  Ouster  at 
the  fort,  and  I  was  rather  shy  of  meeting  the  castellan  after 
firing  at  his  driver  !  But  he  greeted  me  with  a  hearty  burst 
of  laughter,  and  said — 

"  Mr.  Leland,  you  have  the  most  original  way  of  ringing 
a  bell  Avhen  you  want  to  call  a  carriage  that  I  ever  heard 
of." 

As  for  Hassard,  when  he  witnessed  my  parting  with  Brig- 
ham,  he  said — 

"  This  is  all  mighty  fine  !  daggers  and  whisky,  and  all 


LIFE  ON  THE  PRESS.  333 

kinds  of  beautiful  things  flying  around  for  Brigham,  but 
what  am  I  to  have  ?  " 

"  And  what  dost  thou  expect,  son  Hassard  ?  "  I  replied. 

Holding  out  both  his  hands,  he  replied — 

"  Much  tobacco  !  much  tobacco  !  " 

This  was  in  allusion  to  a  story  told  us  by  Lieutenant 
Brown.  Not  long  before,  the  Lieutenant,  seeing,  as  he 
thought,  a  buffalo,  had  fired  at  it.  But  the  buffalo  turned 
out  to  be  an  Indian  on  a  pony  ;  and  the  Indian  riding  fierce 
ly  at  the  Lieutenant,  cried  aloud  for  indemnity  or  the 
"  blood-fine  "  in  the  words,  "  Much  tobacco  !  "  And  so  I 
stood  cigars. 

Life  is  worth  living  for — or  it  would  be — if  it  abounded 
more  in  such  types  as  Mrs.  General  Ouster  and  her  husband. 
There  was  a  bright  and  joyous  chivalry  in  that  man,  and  a 
noble  refinement  mingled  with  constant  gaiety  in  the  wife, 
such  as  I  fear  is  passing  from  the  earth.  Her  books  have 
shown  that  she  was  a  woman  of  true  culture,  and  that  she 
came  by  it  easily,  as  he  did,  and  that  out  of  a  little  they 
could  make  more  than  most  do  from  a  life  of  mere  study.  I 
fear  that  there  will  come  a  time  when  such  books  as  hers 
will  be  the  only  evidences  that  there  were  ever  such  people — 
so  fearless,  so  familiar  with  every  form  of  danger,  privation, 
and  trial,  and  yet  joyous  and  even  reckless  of  it  all.  Good 
Southern  blood  and  Western  experiences  had  made  them 
free  of  petty  troubles.  The  Indians  got  his  scalp  at  last,  and 
with  him  went  one  of  the  noblest  men  whom  America  ever 
brought  forth.* 

That  evening  they  sent  for  a  Bavarian-Tyroler  soldier, 
who  played  beautifully  on  the  cithern.  As  I  listened  to  the 
Jodel-lieder  airs  I  seemed  to  be  again  in  his  native  land.  It 
was  a  pleasure  to  me  to  hear  from  him  the  familiar  dialect. 


*  "  CUSTER  was  the  life  and  soul  of  the  greatest  hand-to-hand  victory 
ever  gained  over  the  Indians  of  the  Plains — except  Patsy  Connor's  Bear 
River  Fight."— The  Masked  Venus,  by  RICHARD  HENRY  SAVAGE. 


334  MEMOIRS. 

At  St.  Louis  we  were  very  kindly  entertained  in  several 
distinguished  houses.  At  one  they  gave  us  some  excellent 
Rhine  wine. 

"  What  do  you  think  of  this  ?  "  said  Hassard,  who  was  a 
good  Latinist. 

I  replied,  "  Vinum  Rhenense  decus  et  gloria  mense." 

In  the  next  we  had  Moselle  wine.     "  And  what  of  this  ?  " 

I  answered,  "  Vinum  Moslanum  fuit  omne  tempore  sa- 
num." 

And  here  I  would  say  that  every  memory  which  I  have  of 
Missouri  (and  there  are  more  by  far  than  this  book  indi 
cates),  as  of  Missourians,  is  extremely  pleasant.  The  State 
is  very  beautiful,  and  I  have  found  among  my  friends  there 
born  such  culture  and  kindness  and  genial  hospitality  as  I 
have  never  seen  surpassed.  To  the  names  of  Mary  A.  Owen,* 
Blow,  Mark  Twain,  and  the  Choteaus  I  could  add  many 
more. 

So  AVC  jogged  on  homeward.  I  resumed  my  work.  I 
had  written  out  all  the  details  of  our  trip  in  letters  to  the 
Press.  They  had  excited  attention.  The  Pennsylvania 
Railroad  Company  suggested  that  they  should  be  published 
in  a  pamphlet.  I  did  so,  and  called  it  "  Three  Thousand 
Miles  in  a  Railroad  Car."  They  offered  to  pay  me  a  very 
good  sum  for  my  trouble  in  so  doing.  I  declined  it,  because 
I  felt  that  I  had  been  amply  paid  by  the  pleasure  which  I 
had  derived  from  the  journey.  But  I  received  grateful  rec 
ognition  subsequently  in  another  form.  The  pamphlet  was 
most  singular  of  its  kind.  It  was  a  full  report  of  all  the  statis 
tics  and  vast  advantages  of  the  Kansas  Pacific  Road.  It  con 
tained  very  valuable  facts  and  figures  ;  and  it  was  all  served 
up  with  jokes,  songs,  buffalo-hunting,  Indians,  and  Brigham. 
It  was  a  marvellous  farrago,  and  it  "  took."  It  was  sent  to 
every  member  of  Congress  and  "  every  other  man." 

*  Miss  Owen  is  well  known  to  all  folk-lorists  as  the  first  living  au 
thority  on  Voodoo. 


LIFE  ON  THE  PRESS.  335 

Before  it  appeared,  a  friend  of  mine  named  Eingwalt, 
•who  was  both  a  literary  man  and  owner  of  a  printing-office, 
offered  me  8200  if  I  would  secure  him  the  printing  of  it.  I 
said  that  I  would  not  take  the  money,  but  that  I  would  get 
him  the  printing,  which  I  easily  did ;  but  being  a  very  honour 
able  man,  he  was  led  to  discharge  the  obligation.  One  day 
he  said  to  me,  "  Why  don't  you  publish  your  'Breitmann 
Ballads  ? '  Everybody  is  quoting  them  now."  I  replied, 
"  There  is  not  a  publisher  in  America  who  would  accept 
them."  And  I  was  quite  right,  for  there  was  not.  He  an 
swered,  "  I  will  print  them  for  you.  I  accepted  the  offer, 
but  when  they  were  set  up  an  idea  occurred  to  me  by  which 
I  could  save  my  friend  his  expenses.  I  went  to  a  publisher 
named  T.  B.  Peterson,  who  said  effectively  this — "  The  book 
will  not  sell  more  than  a  thousand  copies.  There  will  be 
about  a  thousand  people  who  will  buy  it,  even  for  fifty  cents, 
so  I  shall  charge  that,  though  it  would  be,  as  books  go,  only 
as  a  twenty-five  cent  Avork."  He  took  it  and  paid  my  friend 
for  the  composition.  I  was  not  to  receive  any  money  or  share 
in  the  profits  till  all  the  expenses  had  been  paid. 

Mr.  Peterson  immediately  sold  2,000 — 4,000 — I  know  not 
how  many  thousands — at  fifty  cents  a  copy.  It  was  repub- 
lished  in  Canada  and  Australia,  to  my  loss.  An  American 
publisher  who  owned  a  magazine  asked  me,  through  his  edi 
tor,  to  write  for  it  a  long  Breitmann  poem.  I  did  so,  mak 
ing,  however,  an  explicit  verbal  arrangement  that  it  should 
not  be  republished  as  a  book.  It  was,  however,  immediately 
republished  as  such,  with  a  title  to  the  effect  that  it  was  the 
"  Breitmann  Ballads."  I  appealed  to  the  editor,  and  it  was 
withdrawn,  but  I  know  not  how  many  were  issued,  to  my  loss. 

I  had  transferred  the  whole  right  of  publication  in  Eng 
land  to  my  friend  ISacolas  Triibner,  whom  I  had  met  when 
he  had  visited  America,  and  I  wrote  specially  for  his  edition 
certain  poems.  John  "  Camden  "  Hotten  wrote  to  me  mod 
estly  asking  me  to  give  him  the  sole  right  to  republish  the 
work.  He  said,  "  I  hardly  know  what  to  say  about  the  price. 


336  MEMOIRS. 

Suppose  we  say  ten  pounds  !  "  I  replied,  "  Sir,  I  have  given 
the  whole  right  of  publication  to  Mr.  Trubner,  and  I  would 
not  take  it  from  him  for  ten  thousand  pounds."  Hotten  at 
once  published  an  edition  which  was  a  curiosity  of  ignorance 
and  folly.  There  was  a  blunder  on  an  average  to  every  page. 
He  had  annotated  it !  He  explained  that  Knasterlart  meant 
"  a  nasty  fellow,"  and  that  the  French  garce  was  garc,"n 
railway  station  ! "  Trubner  had  sold  5,000  copies  before  this 
precious  affair  appeared.  After  Hotten's  death  the  British 
public  were  informed  in  an  obituary  that  he  had  "first  in 
troduced  me  "  to  their  knowledge  ! 

Hans  Breitmann  became  a  type.  I  never  heard  of  but 
one  German  who  ever  reviled  the  book,  and  that  was  a  Demo 
cratic  editor  in  Philadelphia.  But  the  Germans  themselves 
recognised  that  the  pen  which  poked  fun  at  them  was  no 
poisoned  stiletto.  Whenever  there  was  a  grand  German  pro 
cession,  Hans  was  in  it — the  indomitable  old  Degen  hung 
with  loot — and  he  appeared  in  every  fancy  ball.  Nor  were 
the  Confederates  offended.  One  of  the  most  genial,  search 
ing,  and  erudite  reviews  of  the  work,  which  appeared  in  a 
Southern  magazine  (De  Bow's),  declared  that  I  had  truly 
written  the  Hudibras  of  the  Civil  War.  What  struck  this 
writer  most  was  the  fact  that  I  had  opened  a  new  field  of 
humour.  And  here  he  was  quite  right.  With  the  exception 
of  Dan  Eice's  circus  song  of  "  Der  goot  oldt  Sherman  shen- 
tleman,"  and  a  rather  fiat  parody  of  "  Jessie,  the  Flower  of 
Dumblane,"  I  had  never  seen  or  heard  of  any  specimen  of 
Anglo-German  poetry.  To  be  merely  original  in  language  is 
not  to  excel  in  everything — a  fact  very  generally  ignored — 
else  my  Pidgin-English  ballads  would  take  precedence  of 
Tennyson's  poems  !  On  the  other  hand,  very  great  poets 
have  often  not  made  a  new  form.  The  Yankee  type,  both 
as  regards  spirit  and  language,  had  become  completely  com 
mon  and  familiar  in  prose  and  poetry,  before  Lowell  revived 
it  in  the  clever  Bigloiu  Papers.  Bret  Harte's  "  Heathen 
Chinee,"  and  several  other  poems,  are,  however,  both  original 


LIFE  ON  THE  PRESS.  337 

and  admirable.  Whatever  the  merits  or  demerits  of  mine 
were — and  it  was  years  ere  I  ever  gave  them  a  thought — the 
public,  which  is  always  eager  for  something  new,  took  to 
them  at  once. 

I  say  that  for  years  I  never  gave  them  a  thought.  All  of 
the  principal  poems  except  the  "  Barty  "  and  "  Breitmann  as 
a  Politician,"  were  merely  written  to  fill  up  letters  to  C.  A. 
Bristed,  of  New  York,  and  I  kept  no  copies  of  them — in  fact, 
utterly  forgot  them.  Weingeist  was  first  written  in  a  letter 
to  a  sister  of  Captain  Colton,  with  the  remark  that  it  was 
easier  to  write  such  a  ballad  than  any  prose.  But  Bristed 
published  them  a  mon  insu  in  a  sporting  paper.  Years  after 
I  learned  that  I  published  one  called  "  Breitmann's  Sermon  " 
iu  Leslie's  Magazine.  This  I  have  never  recovered.  If  I 
write  so  much  about  these  poems  now,  I  certainly  was  not 
vain  of  them  when  written.  The  public  found  them  out  long 
before  I  did,  and  it  is  not  very  often  that  it  gets  ahead  of  a 
poet  in  appreciating  his  own  works. 

However,  I  was  "  awful  busy "  in  those  clays.  I  had 
hardly  begun  on  the  Press  ere  I  found  that  it  had  a  weekly 
paper,  made  up  from  the  daily  type  transferred,  which  only 
just  paid  its  expenses.  Secondly,  I  discovered  that  there  was 
not  a  soul  on  the  staff  except  myself  who  had  had  any  ex 
perience  of  weekly  full  editing.  I  at  once  made  out  a  sched 
ule,  showing  that  by  collecting  and  grouping  agricultural 
and  industrial  items,  putting  in  two  or  three  columns  of 
original  matter,  and  bringing  in  a  story  to  go  through  the 
daily  first,  the  weekly  could  be  vastly  improved  at  very  little 
expense. 

Colonel  Forney  admired  the  scheme,  but  asked  "  who  was 
to  carry  it  out."  I  replied  that  I  would.  He  remonstrated, 
very  kindly,  urging  that  I  had  all  I  could  do  as  it  was.  I 
answered,  "  Colonel  Forney,  this  is  not  a  matter  of  time,  but 
method.  There  is  always  time  for  the  man  who  knows  how 
to  lay  it  out."  So  I  got  up  a  very  nice  paper.  But  for  a  very 
long  time  I  could  not  get  an  agent  to  solicit  advertisements 


338  MEMOIRS. 

who  knew  the  business.  The  weekly  paid  its  expenses  and 
nothing  more.  But  one  day  there  came  to  me  a  young  man 
named  M.  T.  Wolf,  lie  was  of  Pennsylvania  German  stock. 
He  had  lost  a  small  fortune  in  the  patent  medicine  business 
and  wanted  employment  badly.  I  suggested  that,  until  some 
thing  else  could  be  found,  he  should  try  his  hand  at  collect 
ing  "  advers." 

Now,  be  it  observed,  as  Mozart  was  born  to  music,  and 
some  men  have  a  powerful  instinct  to  study  medicine,  and 
others  are  so  unnatural  as  to  take  to  mathematics,  Wolf  had 
a  grand  undeveloped  genius  beyond  all  belief  for  collecting 
advertisements.  He  had  tried  many  pursuits  and  failed,  but 
the  first  week  he  went  into  this  business  he  brought  in  $200 

o 

(£40),  which  gave  him  forty  dollars,  and  he  never  afterwards 
fell  below  it,  but  often  rose  above.  "  Advers."  for  him  meant 
not  adversity.  It  was  very  characteristic  of  Colonel  Forney, 
who  was  too  much  absorbed  in  politics  to  attend  much  to 
business,  that  long  after  the  Weekly  Press  was  yielding  him 
$10,000  a  year  dear  profit,  he  said  to  me  one  day,  "  Mr.  Le- 
land,  you  must  not  be  discouraged  as  to  the  weekly ;  the 
clerks  tell  me  in  the  office  that  it  meets  its  expenses  !  " 

There  was  abundance  of  life  and  incident  on  the  news 
paper  in  those  days,  especially  during  election  times  in  the 
autumn.  I  have  known  fights,  night  after  night,  to  be  going 
on  in  the  street  below,  at  the  corner  of  Seventh  and  Chest 
nut,  between  Republicans  and  Democrats,  with  revolver  shots 
and  flashes  at  the  rate  of  fifty  to  a  second,  when  I  was  liter 
ally  so  occupied  with  pressing  telegrams  that  I  could  not  look 
out  to  see  the  fun.  One  night,  however,  when  there  were 
death-shots  falling  thick  and  fast,  I  saw  a  young  man  make  a 
most  incredible  leap.  He  had  received  a  bullet  under  the 
shoulder,  and  when  a  man  or  a  deer  is  hit  there  he  always 
leaps.  I  heard  afterwards  that  he  recovered,  though  this  is  a 
vital  place. 

It  happened  once  that  for  a  week  the  Republicans  were 
kept  from  resisting  or  retaliating  by  their  leaders,  until  the 


LIFE  ON  THE  PRESS.  339 

Democrats  began  to  disgrace  themselves  by  excesses.  Then 
all  at  once  the  Republicans  boiled  over,  thrashed  their  foes, 
and  attacking  the  Copperhead  clubs,  threw  their  furniture 
out  of  the  window,  and — inadvertently  perhaps — also  a  few 
Copperheads.  Just  before  they  let  their  angry  passions  rise 
in  this  fashion  there  came  one  night  a  delegation  to  serenade 
Colonel  Forney  at  the  office.  The  Colonel  was  grand  on 
such  occasions.  He  was  a  fine,  tall,  portly  man,  with  a  lion- 
like  mien  and  a  powerful  voice.  He  began — 

"  My  friends,  fellow-citizens  and  Republicans,  you  have 
this  week  acted  nobly." 

Cries  from  the  crowd,  "  We  liev  !  we  hev  !  " 

"  You,  when  smitten  on  the  right  cheek,  turned  unto  the 
oppressor  the  left." 

"  We  did  !  we  did  !  " 

"  You  are  beyond  all  question  models — I  may  say  Avith 
truth,  paragons  of  patience,  long-suffering,  and  humility. 
You  are — Christian  gentlemen !  " 

"  We  air !  we  air  !  " 

While  this  was  passing,  a  great  gloomy  thunder 
cloud  of  the  Democratic  enemy  gathered  on  the  opposite 
sidewalk,  and  as  the  Colonel  lifted  his  voice  again,  there 
came  a  cry — 

"  Shut  up,  you  d d  old  Republican  dead-duck  ! " 

That  word  was  a  spell  to  raise  the  devil  withal.  Bang ! 
bang  !  bang  !  went  the  revolvers  of  the  Union  men  in  a  vol 
ley,  and  the  Democrats  fled  for  their  lives  down  Seventh 
Street,  pursued  by  the  meek,  lowly,  and  long-suffering 
Christians — like  rabbits  before  wolves. 

The  enemy  at  last  resolved  to  attack  the  Press  and  burn 
the  building.  Then  we  had  one  hundred  and  fifty  policemen 
sent  to  garrison  and  guard.  There  was  a  surging,  howling 
mob  outside,  and  much  guerilla-shooting,  but  all  I  can  re 
member  is  my  vexation  at  having  so  much  to  disturb  me  in 
making  up  the  paper. 

I  never  went  armed  in  my  life  when  I  could  help  it,  for  I 


340  MEMOIRS. 

hate  impedimenta  in  my  pockets.  All  of  us  in  the  office 
hung  up  our  coats  in  a  dark  place  outside.  Whenever  I  sent 
an  assistant  to  get  some  papers  from,  mine,  he  said  that  he 
always  knew  my  coat  because  there  was  no  pistol  in  it. 

Scenes  such  as  these,  and  quite  as  amusing,  were  of  con 
stant  occurrence  in  those  days  in  Philadelphia.  "  All  night 
long  in  that  sweet  little  village  was  heard  the  soft  note  of 
the  pistol  and  the  dying  scream  of  the  victim."  Now,  be  it 
noted,  that  a  stuffed  dead  duck  had  become  the  gonfalon  or 
banner  of  the  Kepublicans,  and  where  it  swung  there  the  battle 
was  fiercest.  There  was  a  young  fellow  from  South  Carolina, 
who  had  become  a  zealous  Union  man,  and  who  made  up  for 
a  sinful  lack  of  sense  by  a  stupendous  stock  of  courage.  One 
morning  there  came  into  the  office  an  object — and  such  an 
object !  His  face  was  all  swathed  and  hidden  in  bloody 
bandages ;  he  was  tattered,  and  limped,  and  had  his  arm  in  a 
sling. 

"  In  the  name  of  Heaven,  who  and  what  are  you  ?  "  I  ex 
claimed.  "  And  who  has  been  passing  you  through  a  bark- 
mill  that  you  look  so  ground-up  ?  " 

In  a  sepulchral  voice  he  replied,  "  I'm ,  and  last 

night  I  carried  the  dead  duck !  " 

Till  I  came  on  the  Press  there  was,  it  may  be  said,  almost 
no  community  between  the  Germans  of  North  Philadelphia 
and  the  Americans  in  our  line.  But  I  had  become  intimate 
with  Von  Tronk,  a  Hanoverian  of  good  family,  a  lawyer,  and 
editor,  I  believe,  of  the  Freie  Presse.  I  even  went  once  or 
twice  to  speak  at  German  meetings.  In  fact,  I  was  getting  to 
be  considered  "  almost  as  all  de  same  so  goot  ash  Deutsch,"  and 
very  "  bopular."  One  day  Von  Tronk  came  with  a  request. 
There  was  to  be  an  immense  German  Republican  Masscn- 
versammlung  or  mass-meeting  in  a  great  beer-garden.  "  If 
Colonel  Forney  could  only  be  induced  to  address  them ! "  I 
undertook  to  do  it.  It  was  an  entirely  new  field  to  him,  but 
one  wondrous  rich  iu  votes.  Now  Colonel  Forney,  though 
from  Lancaster  County  and  of  German-Swiss  extraction, 


LIFE  ON  THE  PRESS. 

knew  not  a  word  of  the  language,  and  I  undertook  to  coach 
him. 

"  You  will  only  need  one  phrase  of  three  words,"  I  said, 
"  to  pull  you  through ;  but  you  must  pronounce  them  perfectly 
and  easily.  They  are  Freiheit  und  Gleichheit,  'freedom 
and  equality.'  Now,  if  you  please,  fry-height." 

The  Colonel  went  at  his  lesson,  and  being  naturally  clever, 
with  a  fine,  deep  voice,  in  a  quarter  of  an  hour  could  roar  out 
Freiheit  und  Gleichheit  with  an  intonation  which  would 
have  raised  a  revolution  in  Berlin.  We  came  to  the  garden, 
and  there  was  an  immense  sensation.  The  Colonel  had  win 
ning  manners,  with  a  manly  mien,  and  he  was  duly  intro 
duced.  When  he  rose  to  speak  there  was  dead  silence.  He 
began — 

"  Friends  and  German  Fellow-citizens  : — Yet  why  should  I 
distinguish  the  words,  since  to  me  every  German  is  a  friend. 
I  am  myself,  as  you  all  know,  of  unmingled  German  ex 
traction,  and  I  am  very,  very  proud  of  it.  But  there  is  one 
German  sentiment  which  from  a  child  has  been  ever  in  my 
heart,  and  from  infancy  ever  on  my  lips,  and  that  sentiment, 
my  friends,  is  Freiheit  und  Gleichheit !  " 

If  ever  audience  was  astonished  in  this  world  it  was  that 
of  the  Massenversammlung  when  this  burst  on  their  ears. 
They  hurrahed  and  roared  and  banged  the  tables  in  such  a 
mad  storm  of  delight  as  even  Colonel  Forney  had  never  seen 
surpassed.  Rising  to  the  occasion,  he  thundered  on,  and  as 
he  reached  the  end  of  every  sentence  he  repeated,  with  great 
skill  and  aptness,  Freiheit  und  Gleichheit. 

"  You  have  made  two  thousand  votes  by  that  speech, 
Colonel,"  I  said,  as  we  returned.  "  Von  Tronk  will  manage 
it  at  this  crisis."  After  that,  when  the  Colonel  jested,  he 
would  called  me  "  the  Dutch  vote-maker."  This  was  during 
the  Grant  campaign. 

Droll  incidents  were  of  constant  occurrence  in  this  life. 
Out  of  a  myriad  I  will  note  a  few.  One  day  there  came  into 
our  office  an  Indian  agent  from  the  West,  who  had  brought 


342  MEMOIRS. 

with  him  a  Winnebago  who  claimed  to  be  the  rightful  chief 
of  his  tribe.  They  were  going  to  Washington  to  enforce  the 
claim.  While  the  agent  conversed  with  some  one  the  Indian 
was  turned  over  to  me.  He  was  a  magnificent  specimen,  six 
feet  high,  clad  in  a  long  trailing  scarlet  blanket,  with  a 
scarlet  straight  feather  in  Iris  hair  which  continued  him  up 
ad  infinitum,  and  he  was  straight  as  a  lightning  rod.  He 
was  handsome,  and  very  dignified  and  grave ;  but  I  under 
stood  that.  I  can  come  it  indifferent  well  myself  when  I 
am  "  out  of  my  plate,"  as  the  French,  say,  in  strange  society. 
He  spoke  no  English,  but,  as  the  agent  said,  knew  six  Indian 
languages,  lie  was  evidently  a  chief  by  blood,  "  all  the  way 
down  to  his  moccasins." 

What  with  a  few  words  of  Kaw  (I  had  learned  about  a 
hundred  Avords  of  it  with  great  labour)  and  a  few  other 
phrases  of  other  tongues,  I  succeeded  in  interesting  him. 
But  I  could  not  make  him  smile,  and  I  swore  unto  myself 
that  I  would. 

Being  thirsty,  the  Indian,  seeing  a  cooler  of  ice-water, 
with  the  daring  peculiar  to  a  great  brave,  went  and  took  a 
glass  and  turned  on  the  spicket.  He  filled  his  glass — it  was 
brim-full — but  he  did  not  know  how  to  turn  it  off.  Then  I 
had  him.  As  it  ran  over  he  turned  to  me  an  appealing  help 
less  glance.  I  said  "Neosho"  This  in  Pottawattamie  means 
an  inundation  or  overflowing  of  the  banks,  and  is  generally 
applied  to  the  inundation  of  the  Mississippi.  There  is  a 
town  on  the  latter  so  called.  This  was  too  much  for  the 
Indian,  and  he  laughed  aloud. 

"  Great  God !  what  have  you  been  saying  to  that  Indian  ?  " 
cried  the  agent,  amazed.  "  It  is  the  first  time  he  has  laughed 
since  he  left  home." 

"  Only  a  little  pun  in  Pottawattamie.  But  I  really  know 
very  little  of  the  language." 

"  I  have  no  knowledge  of  the  Indian  languages,"  remarked 
our  city  editor,  MacGinnis,  a  genial  young  Irishman,  "  least 
of  all,  thank  God  !  of  Pottawattamie.  But  I  have  always 


LIFE  ON  THE  PRESS.  343 

understood  that  when  a  man  gets  so  far  in  a  tongue  as  to 
make  j9?^??s  in  it,  it  is  time  for  him  to  stop." 

Years  after  this  I  was  one  evening  in  London  at  an  open 
ing  of  an  exhibition  of  pictures.  There  were  present  Indian 
Hindoo  princes  in  gorgeous  array,  English  nobility,  literary 
men,  and  fine  ladies.  Among  them  was  an  unmistakable 
Chippeway  in  a  white  Canadian  blanket-coat,  every  inch  an 
Indian.  I  began  with  the  usual  greeting,  "  Ho  nitclii !  " 
(Ho,  brother !),  to  which  he  gravely  replied.  I  tried  two  or 
three  phrases  on  him  with  the  same  effect.  Then  I  played  a 
sure  card.  Sinking  my  voice  with  an  inviting  wink,  I  uttered 
" Skingawauba"  or  whisky.  "Dot  fetched  him."  He  too 
laughed.  Gleich  mit  gleich,  gesellt  sich  gern. 

While  living  in  New  York,  and  during  my  connection 
with  the  Press,  I  often  met  and  sometimes  conversed  with 
Horace  Greeley.  Once  I  went  with  him  from  Philadelphia 
to  New  York,  and  he  was  in  the  car  the  observed  of  all  ob 
servers  to  an  extraordinary  degree.  He  sat  down,  took  out 
an  immense  roll  of  proof,  and  said,  "Lead  pencil ! "  One 
was  immediately  handed  to  him  by  some  stranger,  who  was 
by  that  one  act  ennobled,  or,  what  amounts  to  the  same 
thing  in  America,  grotesquely  charactered  for  life.  He  was 
the  man  who  gave  Horace  Greeley  a  lead  pencil !  I,  as  his 
companion,  was  also  regarded  as  above  ordinary  humanity. 
AVhen  the  proof  was  finished  "  Horace  "  said  to  me — 

"  How  is  John  Forney  getting  on  ?  " 

"  Like  Satan,  walking  to  and  fro  upon  the  face  of  the 
earth,  going  from  the  Chronicle  in  Washington  one  day  to 
the  Press  in  Philadelphia  on  the  next,  and  filling  them  both 
cram  full  of  leaders  and  letters." 

"  Two  papers,  both  daily !  I  tell  Forney  that  I  find  it  is 
all  I  can  do  to  attend  to  one.  Tell  him  not  to  get  too  rich — 
bad  for  the  constitution  and  worse  for  the  country.  Any 
man  who  has  more  than  a  million  is  a  public  nuisance." 

Finally,  we  walked  together  from  the  ferry  to  the  corner 
of  Park  Place  and  Broadway,  and  the  philosopher,  after 


344  MEMOIRS. 

minutely  explaining  to  me  which  omnibus  I  was  to  take,  bade 
me  adieu.  I  do  not  think  we  ever  met  again. 

In  the  summer  Colonel  Forney  went  to  Europe  with  John 
the  junior.  "When  he  left  he  said,  "  I  do  not  expect  you  to 
raise  the  circulation  of  the  Press,  but  I  hope  that  you  will 
be  able  to  keep  it  from  falling  in  the  dead  season."  I  went 
to  work,  and  what  with  enlarging  the  telegraphic  news,  and 
correspondence,  and  full  reports  of  conventions,  I  materially 
increased  the  sale.  It  cost  a  great  deal  of  money,  to  be  sure, 
but  the  Colonel  did  not  mind  that.  At  this  time  there  came 
into  our  office  as  associate  with  me  Captain  TV.  TV.  Nevin. 
He  had  been  all  through  the  war.  I  took  a  great  liking  to 
him,  and  we  always  remained  intimate  friends.  All  in  our 
office  except  myself  were  from  Lancaster  County,  the  birth 
place,  I  believe,  of  Fitch  and  Fulton.  It  is  a  Pennsylvania 
German  county,  and  as  I  notoriously  spoke  German  openly 
without  shame  ours  was  called  a  Dutch  office.  Once  when 
Colonel  Forney  wrote  a  letter  from  Holland  describing  the 
windmills,  the  Sunday  Transcript  unkindly  remarked  that 
"  he  had  better  come  home  and  look  after  his  own  Dutch 
windmill  at  the  corner  of  Seventh  and  Chestnut  Streets." 

I  had  at  this  time  a  great  deal  to  do  with  the  operas  and 
theatres,  and  often  wrote  the  reviews.  After  a  while,  as  Cap 
tain  Nevin  relieved  me  of  a  great  deal  of  work,  and  I  had  an 
able  assistant  named  Norcross,  I  devoted  myself  chiefly  to 
dramatic  criticism  and  the  weekly,  and  such  work  as  suited 
me  best.  As  for  the  dignity  of  managership,  Captain  Nevin 
and  I  tossed  it  from  one  to  the  other  like  a  hot  potato  in 
jest,  but  between  us  we  ran  the  paper  very  well.  There  was  an 
opera  impresario  named  Maurice  Strakosch,  of  whom  I  had 
heard  that  he  was  hard  to  deal  with  and  irritable.  I  forget 
now  who  the  prima  donna  in  his  charge  was,  but  there  had 
appeared  in  our  paper  a  criticism  which  might  be  interpreted 
in  some  detail  unfavourably  by  a  captious  critic.  One  after 
noon  there  came  into  the  office,  where  I  was  alone,  a  gentle 
manly-seeming  man,  who  began  to  manifest  anger  in  regard 


LIFE  ON  THE  PRESS.  345 

to  the  criticism  in  question.  I  replied,  "  I  do  not  know,  sir, 
what  your  position  in  the  opera  troupe  may  be,  but  if  it 
be  anything  which  requires  a  knowledge  of  English,  I  am 
afraid  that  you  are  misplaced.  There  was  no  intention  to 
offend  in  the  remarks,  and  so  far  as  the  lady  is  concerned  I 
shall  only  be  too  glad  to  say  the  very  best  I  can  of  her. 
Comprenez,  monsieur,  c'est  une  bagatelle"  He  laughed,  and 
we  spoke  French,  then  Italian,  then  German,  and  of  Patti 
and  Sontag  and  Lind.  Then  I  asked  him  what  he  really 
was,  and  he  replied,  "  I  do  not  believe  that  you  even  know 
the  name  of  my  native  tongue.  It  is  Czech."  I  stared  at 
him  amazed,  and  said — 

"Veliky  Bog!  Kozprava  pochesky?  Nekrasneya  rejece 
est." 

The  Bohemian  gentleman  drew  a  handsomely  bound 
book  from  his  pocket.  "  Sir,"  he  said,  "  this  is  my  album. 
It  is  full  of  signatures  of  great  artists,  even  of  kings  and 
queens  and  poets.  There  is  not  a  name  in  it  which  is  not 
that  of  a  distinguished  person,  and  I  do  not  know  what  your 
name  is,  but  I  beg  that  you  will  write  it  in  my  book." 

Nearly  the  same  scene  was  repeated  soon  after,  with  the 
same  words,  when  the  great  actress  Fanny  Janauschek  came 
to  Philadelphia.  At  that  time  she  played  only  in  German. 
Her  manager,  Grau,  introduced  me  to  her,  and  she  compli 
mented  me  on  my  German,  and  praised  the  language  as  the 
finest  in  the  world. 

"  Yes,"  I  replied,  "  it  is  certainly  very  fine.  But  I  know 
a  finer,  which  goes  more  nearly  to  the  heart,  and  with  which 
I  can  move  you  more  deeply." 

"  And  what  is  that  ?  "  cried  the  great  artist  astonished. 

"  It  is,"  I  replied,  in  her  native  tongue,  "  Bohemian. 
That  is  the  language  for  me." 

Madame  Janauschek  was  so  affected  that  she  burst  out 
crying,  though  she  was  a  woman  of  tremendous  nerve.  We 
became  great  friends,  and  often  met  again  in  after  years  in 
England. 


MEMOIRS. 

I  have  seen  Eistori  play  for  thirty  nights  in  succession,* 
and  Rachel  and  Sarah  Bernhardt;  but  as  regards  true  genius, 
Janauschek  in  her  earlier  days  was  incomparably  their  su 
perior;  for  these  all  played  from  nerves  and  instinct,  but 
Janauschek  from  her  brain  and  intellect.  I  often  wondered 
that  she  did  not  write  plays.  It  is  said  of  Rachel-  that  there 
was  once  a  five-act  play  in  which  she  died  at  the  end  of  the 
fourth  act.  After  it  had  had  a  long  run  she  casually  asked 
some  one  how  it  ended.  She  had  never  read  the  fifth  act. 
Such  a  story  could  never  have  been  told  of  Janauschek. 

In  the  summer  there  were  one  or  two  railroad  excursions 
to  visit  new  branch  roads  in  Pennsylvania.  While  on  one  of 
these  I  visited  the  celebrated  Mauch  Chunk  coal  mines,  and 
rode  on  the  switchback  railway,  where  I  had  a  fearfully 
narrow  escape  from  death.  This  switchback  is  a  montagne 
Russe  coming  up  and  down  a  hill,  and  six  miles  in  length. 
Yet,  though  the  rate  of  speed  is  appalling,  the  engineer  can 
stop  the  car  in  a  few  seconds'  time  with  the  powerful  brake. 
We  were  going  down  headlong,  when  all  at  once  a  cow 
stepped  out  of  the  bushes  on  the  road  before  us,  and  if  we 
had  struck  her  we  must  have  gone  headlong  over  the  cliff 
and  been  killed.  But  by  a  miracle  the  engineer  stopped  the 
car  just  as  we  got  to  the  cow.  We  were  saved  by  a  second. 
Something  very  like  it  had  occurred  to  my  wife  and  to  me 
in  1859.  We  were  going  to  Reading  by  rail,  when  the  train 
ran  off  the  track  and  went  straight  for  an  embankment 
where  there  was  a  fall  of  150  feet.  It  was  stopped  just  as 
the  locomotive  protruded  or  looked  over  the  precipice.  Had 
there  been  the  least  trifle  more  of  steam  on  at  that  instant 
we  must  all  have  perished. 

In  November  of  this  my  second  year  on  the  Press 
my  father  died.  One  thing  occurred  on  this  sad  bereave 
ment  which  alleviated  it  a  little.  I  had  always  felt  all  my 

*  I  am  revising  this  MS.  in  the  beautiful  palazzo  built  for  Ristori, 
22  Lung  Arno  Nuovo,  Florence.  It  is  now  the  Pensione  Pellini.  On 
the  ground  floor  are  statues  representing  Ristori  in  different  parts. 


LIFE  ON  THE  PRESS.  347 

life  that  he  had  never  been  satisfied  with  my  want  of  a  fixed 
career  or  position.  He  did  not,  I  think,  very  much  like 
John  Forney,  the  audacious,  reckless  politician,  but  he  still 
respected  his  power  and  success,  and  it  astonished  him  a 
little,  and  many  others  quite  as  much,  to  find  that  I  was  in 
many  respects  Forney's  right-hand  man,  and  manager  of  a 
bold  political  paper  which  had  a  great  influence.  A  day  or 
two  before  he  died  my  father  expressed  himself  kindly  to 
the  effect  that  I  had  at  last  done  well,  and  that  he  was  satis 
fied  with  me.  At  last,  after  so  many  years,  he  felt  that  I 
had  etat — a  calling,  a  definite  position.  In  fact,  in  those 
days  it  was  often  said  that  Forney  could  make  himself  Presi 
dent,  as  he  indeed  might  have  done  but  for  certain  errors, 
no  greater  than  have  been  committed  by  more  successful 
men,  and  a  stroke  of  ill-luck  such  as  few  can  resist. 

The  winter  passed  quietly.  I  was  extremely  fond  of  my 
life  and  work.  Summer  came,  and  with  it  a  great  desire  for 
a  change  and  wild  life  and  the  West,  for  I  had  worked  very 
hard.  A  very  great  railway  excursion,  which  was  destined 
to  have  a  great  effect,  was  being  organised,  and  both  my  wife 
and  I  were  invited  to  join  it.  Mr.  John  Edgar  Thompson, 
the  president  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad,  Mr.  Hinckley, 
of  the  Baltimore  road,  President  Felton,  Professor  Leidy, 
Eobert  Lamborn,  and  a  number  of  other  notables,  were 
to  go  to  Duluth,  on  Lake  Superior,  and  decide  on  the 
terminus  of  the  railroad  as  a  site  for  a  city.  Mrs.  John  E. 
Thompson  had  her  own  private  car,  which  was  seventy  feet 
in  length,  and  fitted  up  with  every  convenience  and  luxury. 
To  this  was  added  the  same  directors'  car  in  which  I  had 
travelled  to  Minnesota.  There  were  to  be  in  all  ten  or  twelve 
gentlemen  and  ten  ladies.  There  was  such  efficient  service 
that  one  young  man,  a  clerk,  was  detailed  especially  to  look 
after  our  luggage.  As  we  stopped  every  night  at  some  hotel, 
he  would  inquire  what  we  required  to  be  taken  to  our  rooms, 
and  saw  that  it  was  brought  back  in  the  morning.  I  went 
off  in  such  a  hurry  that  I  forgot  my  Indian  blanket,  nor  had 


MEMOIRS. 

I  any  revolver  or  gun,  all  of  which,  especially  the  blanket,  I 
sadly  missed  ere  I  returned.  I  got,  before  I  left,  a  full  white 
flannel  or  fine  white  cloth  suit,  which  was  then  a  startling 
novelty,  and  wore  it  to  the  Falls  of  the  Mississippi.  Little 
did  I  foresee  that  ere  it  gave  out  I  should  also  have  it  on  at 
the  Cataracts  of  the  Nile  ! 

So  we  started  and  after  a  few  hours'  travel,  stopped  at 
Altona.  There  I  was  very  much  amused  by  an  old  darkey 
at  the  railway-station  hotel,  who  had,  as  he  declared,  "  spe 
cially  the  kyar  of  de  ladies  an'  quality."  He  had  been  a  slave 
till  the  war  broke  out,  and  had  been  wondrously  favoured  by 
visions  and  revelations  which  guided  him  to  freedom.  "  De 
Lawd  he  'pear  to  me  in  a  dream,  an'  I  hyar  a  vi'ce  which  cry, 
'  Simon,  arise  an'  git  out  of  dis,  an'  put  f o'  de  Norf  as  fass 
as  you  kin  travel,  fo'  de  day  of  de  'pressor  is  at  an  end,  an' 
you  is  to  be  free.'  So  I  rosed  an'  fled,  hardly  a-waitin'  to 
stuff  my  bag  wid  some  corn-dodgers  an'  bacon,  an'  foller  de 
Norf  Star  till  I  git  confused  an'  went  to  sleep  agin,  wen,  lo, 
an  angel  expostulated  hisself  befo'  my  eyes  in  a  wision,  an' 
say,  'Simon,  beholdes'  dou  dat  paff  by  de  riber?  Dat's  de 
one  fo'  you  to  foller,  ole  son ! '  So  I  follers  it  till  I  git  on  de 
right  trail.  Den  I  met  anoder  nigger  a-'scapin'  from  the 
bon's  of  captivity,  an'  carryin'  a  cold  ham,  an'  I  jined  in  wid 
him — you  bet — an'  so  we  come  to  de  Lawd's  country." 

And  so  gaily  on  to  Chicago.  We  went  directly  to  the 
first  hotel,  and  as  soon  as  I  had  toiletted  and  gone  below,  I 
saw  on  the  opposite  building  a  sign  with  the  words  Chicago 
Tribune.  This  was  an  exchange  of  ours,  so  I  crossed  over, 
and  meeting  the  editor  by  chance  in  the  doorway,  was  wel 
comed  and  introduced  to  Governor  Desbrosses,  who  stood  by. 
Then  I  went  to  a  telegraph  office  and  sent  a  despatch  to  the 
Press.  The  man  wanted  me  to  pay.  I  told  him  to  C.  0.  D., 
"  collect  on  delivery."  He  declined.  I  said,  "  Your  princi 
pal  office  is  in  Philadelphia,  is  it  not? — Third  and  Chestnut 
Streets.  Just  send  a  telegram  and  ask  the  name  of  your 
landlord.  It's  Leland,  and  Pm  the  man.  If  you  make  me 


LIFE  ON  THE  PRESS.  349 

pay,  I'll  raise  your  rent."  He  laughed  heartily  and  let  me 
off,  but  not  without  a  parting  shot:  "You  see,  Mr.  Leland, 
there  are  so  many  scallawags  *  from  the  East  come  here,  that 
we  are  obliged  to  be  a  little  particular." 

I  returned  to  the  hotel,  and  was  immediately  introduced 
to  some  one  having  authority.  I  narrated  my  late  experi 
ence.  He  looked  at  me  and  said,  "  How  long  have  you  been 
in  Chicago?"  I  replied,  "About  thirty  minutes."  He  an 
swered  gravely,  "  I  think  you'd  better  stay  here.  You'll  suit 
the  place."  I  was  beginning  to  feel  the  moral  influence  of 
the  genial  air  of  the  West.  Chicago  is  emphatically  what  is 
termed  "  a  place,"  and  a  certain  amount  of  calm  confidence 
in  one's  self  is  not  in  that  city  to  any  one's  discredit.  Once 
there  was  an  old  lady  of  a  "  hard  "  type  in  the  witness-box  in 
an  American  city.  She  glared  round  at  the  judge,  the  jury, 
and  the  spectators,  and  then  burst  out  with,  "  You  needn't 

all  be  staring  at  me  in  that  way.  I  don't  keer  a for  you 

all.  I've  lived  eleven  years  in  Chicago,  and  ain't  affeard  of 
the  devil."  Chicago  is  said  in  Indian  to  mean  the  place  of 
skunks,  but  calling  a  rose  a  skunk-cabbage  don't  make  it  one. 

Walking  on  the  edge  of  the  lake  near  the  city,  the  waters 
cast  up  a  good-sized  living  specimen  of  that  extraordinary 
fish-lizard,  the  great  menobranchus,  popularly  known  as  the 
hell-bender  from  its  extreme  ugliness.  Owing  to  the  im 
mense  size  of  its  spermatozoa,  it  has  rendered  great  aid  to 
embryology,  a  science  which,  when  understood  aufond,  will 
bring  about  great  changes  in  the  human  race.  We  were 
taken  out  in  a  steamboat  to  the  end  of  the  great  aqueduct, 
which  was,  when  built,  pronounced,  I  think  by  the  London 
Times,  to  be  the  greatest  engineering  work  of  modern  times. 

In  due  time  we  came  to  St.  Paul,  Minnesota,.  We  went 
to  a  very  fair  hotel  and  had  a  very  good  dinner.  In  the 
West  it  is  very  common  among  the  commonalty  to  drink 
coffee  and  milk  through  dinner,  and  indeed  with  all  meals, 

*  Scallawag,  from  the  Gaelic  scallag,  a  vagabond. — D.  MacRitchie. 
16 


350  MEMOIRS. 

instead  of  wine  or  ale,  but  the  custom  is  considered  as  vulgar 
by  swells.  Having  finished  dessert,  I  asked  the  Irish  waiter 
to  bring  me  a  small  cup  of  black  coffee  and  brandy.  Draw 
ing  himself  up  stiffly,  Pat  replied,  "We  don't  serve  caafy  at 
dinner  in  this  hotel."  There  was  a  grand  roar  of  laughter, 
which  the  waiter  evidently  thought  was  at  my  expense,  as  he 
retreated  smiling. 

We  were  kindly  received  in  St.  Paul  by  everybody. 
There  is  this  immense  advantage  of  English  or  American 
hospitality  over  that  of  all  other  countries,  that  it  introduces 
us  to  the  home,  and  makes  us  forget  that  we  are  strangers. 
When  we  were  at  the  end  of  the  fearfully  wearisome  great 
moral  circus  known  as  the  Oriental  Congress,  held  all  over 
Scandinavia  in  1890,  there  came  to  me  one  evening  in  the 
station  a  great  Norseman  with  his  friends.  With  much 
would-be,  ox-like  dignity  he  began,  "  You  ha-ave  now  expe 
rienced  de  glorious  haspitality  off  our  country.  You  will  go 
oom  and  say " 

"  Stop  a  minute  there!"  I  exclaimed,  for  I  was  bored  to 
death  with  a  show  which  had  been  engineered  to  tatters,  and 
to  half  defeating  all  the  work  of  the  Congress,  in  order  to 
glorify  the  King  and  Count  Landberg.  "  I  have  been  here 
in  your  countrv  six  weeks,  and  I  had  letters  of  introduction, 
and  have  made  no  end  of  acquaintances.  I  have  been  shown 
thousands  of  fireworks,  which  blind  me,  and  offered  dozens 
of  champagne,  which  I  never  touch,  and  public  dinners, 
which  I  did  not  attend.  But  during  the  whole  time  I  have 
never  once  seen  the  inside  of  a  Swedish  or  Norwegian  house." 
Which  was  perfectly  true,  nor  have  I  ever  seen  one  to  this 
day.  There  is  a  kind  of  "hospitality"  which  consists  of 
giving  yourself  a  grand  treat  at  a  tavern  or  cafe,  and  in 
viting  your  strangers  to  it  to  help  you  to  be  glorified.  But 
to  very  domestic  people  and  utter  Philistines,  domestic  life 
lacks  the  charm  of  a  brass  band,  and  the  mirrors  and  gilding 
of  a  restaurant  or  hotel ;  therefore,  what  they  themselves  en 
joy  most,  the}',  with  best  intent,  but  most  unwisely,  inflict  on 


•    LIFE  ON  THE  PRESS.  351 

more  civilised  folk.  But  in  America  and  England,  where 
home-life  is  worth  living  and  abounding  in  every  attraction, 
and  public  saloons  are  at  a  discount,  the  case  is  reversed. 
And  in  these  Western  towns,  of  which  many  were,  so  to 
speak,  almost  within  hearing  of  the  whoop  of  the  savage  or 
the  howl  of  the  wolf  (as  Leavenworth  really  was),  we  ex 
perienced  a  refinement  of  true  hospitality  in  homes — kind 
ness  and  tact  such  as  I  have  never  known  to  be  equalled  save 
in  Great  Britain.  One  evening  I  was  at  a  house  in  St.  Paul, 
where  I  was  struck  by  the  beauty,  refined  manners,  and 
agreeableness  of  our  hostess,  who  was  a  real  Chippeway  or 
Sioux  Indian,  and  wife  of  a  retired  Indian  trader.  She  had 
been  well  educated  at  a  Canadian  French  seminary. 

"We  were  taken  over  to  see  the  rival  city  of  Minneapolis, 
of  which  word  my  brother  Henry  said  it  was  a  vile  grinding 
np  together  of  Greek  and  Indian.  Minne  means  water ; 
Minne-sota,  turbid  water,  and  Minne-haha  does  not  signify 
"  laughing,"  but  falling  water.  This  we  also  visited,  and  I 
found  it  so  charming,  that  I  was  delighted  to  think  that  for 
once  an  Indian  name  had  been  kept,  and  that  the  young 
ladies  of  the  boarding-schools  of  St.  Paul  or  Minneapolis 
had  not  christened  or  devilled  it  "  Diana's  Bath." 

We  were  received  kindly  by  the  Council  of  the  city  of 
Minneapolis.  Half  of  them  had  come  from  the  East  afflicted 
with  consumption,  and  all  had  recovered.  But  it  is  necessary 
to  remain  there  to  live.  My  wife's  cousin,  Mr.  Eichard 
Price,  who  then  owned  the  great  saw-mill  next  the  Fall  of 
St.  Anthony,  came  with  this  affliction  from  Philadelphia,  and 
got  over  it.  After  six  years'  absence  he  returned  to  Phila 
delphia,  and  died  in  six  weeks  of  consumption.  Strangely 
enough,  consumption  is  the  chief  cause  of  death  among  the 
Indians,  but  this  is  due  to  their  careless  habits,  wearing  wet 
moccasins  and  the  like. 

Now  a  great  question  arose.  It  was  necessary  for  the 
magnates  of  our  party  to  go  to  Duluth,  and  to  do  this  they 
must  make  a  seven  days'  journey  through  the  wilderness, 


352  MEMOIRS. 

either  on  a  very  rough  military  road  cut  through  the  woods 
during  the  war,  or  sometimes  on  no  road  at  all.  Houses  or 
post-stations,  often  of  only  one  or  two  rooms,  were  sometimes 
a  day's  journey  apart.  The  question  was  whether  delicate 
ladies,  utterly  unaccustomed  to  anything  like  hard  travel, 
could  take  this  trip,  during  which  they  must  endure  clouds 
of  mosquitos,  put  up  with  camp-cooking,  or  often  none,  and 
otherwise  go  through  privations  such  as  only  an  Indian  or  a 
frontiersman  would  care  to  experience  ?  The  entire  town  of 
St.  Paul,  and  all  the  men  of  our  party,  vigorously  opposed 
taking  the  ladies,  while  I,  joining  the  latter,  insisted  on  it 
that  they  could  go ;  for,  as  I  said  to  all  assembled,  where 
the  devil  is  afraid  to  go  he  sends  a  woman  ;  and  I  had  always 
observed  that  in  travelling,  long  after  men  are  tired  out 
women  are  generally  all  right.  They  are  never  more  played 
out  than  they  want  to  be, 

"  Femme  plaint,  femine  deult, 
Femme  est  malade  quand  elle  veult, 
Et  par  Sainte  Marie  I 
Quand  elle  veult  elle  est  guerye." 

And  of  course  we  carried  the  day.  Twelve  men,  even 
though  backed  up  by  a  city  council,  have  no  chance  against  any 
ten  women.  To  be  sure  women,  like  all  other  savages,  re 
quire  a  male  leader — I  mean  to  say,  just  as  Goorkha  troops, 
though  brave  as  lions,  must  have  an  English  captain — so  they 
conquered  under  my  guidance  ! 

Having  had  experience  in  fitting  out  for  the  wilderness,  I 
was  requested  to  see  to  the  stores — so  many  hams  to  so  many 
people  for  so  many  days,  so  much  coffee,  and  so  forth.  I 
astonished  all  by  insisting  that  there  should  be  one  tin  cup 
to  every  traveller.  "  Every  glass  you  have  will  soon  be 
broken,"  I  said.  And  so  it  was,  sooner  than  I  expected.  As 
tin  cups  could  not  be  found  in  St.  Paul,  we  bought  three  or 
four  dozen  small  tin  basins  of  about  six  inches  diameter  at 
the  rim,  and  when  champagne  Avas  served  out  it 
de  mieux,  drunk  from  these  eccentric  goblets. 


LIFE  ON  THE  PRESS.  353 

In  the  first  waggon  were  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Thompson  and 
Mrs.  Leland.  Their  driver  was  a  very  eccentric  Canadian 
Frenchman  named  Louis.  He  was  to  the  last  degree  polite 
to  the  ladies,  but  subject  to  attacks  of  Indian  rage  at  mere 
trifles,  when  he  would  go  aside,  swear,  and  destroy  something 
like  a  lunatic  in  a  fury,  and  then  return  quite  happy  and 
serene.  I  was  in  the  second  waggon  with  three  ladies,  a  man 
being  wanted  in  every  vehicle.  Our  driver  was  named 
George,  and  he  was  altogether  like  Brigham,  minus  the 
Mexican-Spanish  element.  George  had,  however,  also  lived 
a  great  deal  among  Indians,  and  been  at  the  great  battle  of 
the  Chippeways  and  Sioux,  and  was  full  of  interesting  and 
naive  discourse. 

Of  course,  we  of  the  two  leading  waggons  all  talked  to 
Louis  in  French,  who  gave  himself  great  airs  on  it.  One 
morning  George  asked  me  in  confidence, "  Mr.  Leland,  you're 
not  all  French,  are  you  ?  "  "  Certainly  not,"  I  replied  ;  "  we're 
from  Philadelphia."  "Well,"  replied  George,  "so  I  told 
Louis,  but  he  says  you  are  French,  like  him,  and  shut  me  up 
by  askin'  me  if  I  hadn't  heard  you  talkin'  it.  Now  what  I 
want  to  know  is,  if  you're  not  French,  how  came  the  whole 
of  you  to  know  it  ?  "  I  explained  to  George,  to  his  astonish 
ment,  that  in  the  East  it  was  usual  for  all  well-educated  per 
sons,  especially  ladies,  to  learn  it.  I  soon  became  as  intimate 
with  George  as  I  had  been  with  Brigham,  and  began  to  learn 
Ohippeway  of  him,  and  greet  the  Indians  whom  we  met. 
One  day  George  said — 

"  Of  course  you  have  no  Indian  blood  in  you,  Mr.  Leland  ; 
but  weren't  you  a  great  deal  among  'em  when  you  were  young?" 

"  Why  ?  " 

"  Because  you've  got  queer  little  old  Injun  ways.  When 
ever  you  stop  by  the  roadside  to  talk  to  anybody  and  sit 
down,  you  always  rake  the  small  bits  of  wood  together  and 
pull  out  a  match  and  make  a  smudge "  (a  very  smoky  fire 
made  by  casting  dust  on  it),  "  just  like  an  Indian  in  an  Injun 
kind  of  wav."  (In  after  vears  I  found  this  same  habit  of 

v  \  •> 


354:  MEMOIRS. 

making  fires  of  small  bits  of  wood  peculiar  to  old  English 
gypsies.) 

The  smudge  is  the  great  summer  institution  of  Minne 
sota.  It  is  the  safeguard  against  mosquitos.  They  are  all 
over  the  State  in  such  numbers  that  they  constitute  a  plague. 
We  all  wore  all  the  time  over  our  faces  and  necks  a  kind  of 
guard  or  veil,  shaped  exactly  like  an  Egyptian  fanous  or 
folding  lantern.  It  is  cylindrical,  made  of  tulle  or  coarse 
lace,  with  rings.  At  every  house  people  sat  in  the  porticos 
over  a  tin  bucket,  in  which  there  was  a  smudge — that  is  to 
say,  in  smoke.  In  the  evening  some  one  goes  with  a  tin  or 
iron  pail  containing  a  smudge,  and  fills  the  bedrooms  with 
dense  smoke.  One  evening  Mr.  Hinckley  and  another  of  our 
party  went  fishing  without  veils.  They  returned  with  their 
necks  behind  swollen  up  as  if  with  goitres  or  Kropfe.  I  knew 
a  young  Englishman  who  with  friends,  somewhere  beyond 
Manitoba,  encountered  such  a  storm  of  mosquitos  that  their 
oxen  were  killed,  and  the  party  saved  themselves  by  riding 
away  on  horseback.  So  he  told  me. 

At  the  stations — all  log-houses — the  ladies  collected  pil 
lows  and  buffalo  blankets,  and,  making  a  great  bed,  all  slept 
in  one  room.  We  men  slept  in  waggons  or  under  a  tent, 
which  was  not  quite  large  enough  for  all.  The  Indian 
women  cut  spruce  twigs  and  laid  them  over-lapping  on  the 
ground  for  our  bed.  By  preference  I  took  the  outside,  al 
fresco.  One  night  we  stayed  at  a  house  which  had  an  upper 
and  a  lower  storey.  The  ladies  camped  upstairs.  In  the 
morning,  when  we  men  below  awoke,  all  took  a  drink  of 
whisky.  There  entered  a  very  tall  Indian,  clad  in  a  long 
black  blanket,  who  looked  on  very  approvingly  at  the  drink 
ing.  I  called  to  my  wife  above  to  hand  me  down  my 
whisky  flask.  "  There  is  a  big  Indian  here  who  wants  a 
drink,"  I  remarked.  "  I  think  I  know,"  she  replied,  "  who 
that  big  Indian  is,"  but  handed  down  the  flask.  "Don't 
waste  whisky  on  an  Indian"  said  one  of  my  companions. 
But  I  filled  the  cup  with  a  tremendous  slug,  and  handed  it 


LIFE  ON  THE  PRESS.  355 

to  the  Objibway.  He  took  it  down  like  milk,  and  never  a 
word  spoke  he,  but  when  it  was  swallowed  he  looked  at  me 
and  winked.  Such  a  wink  as  that  was !  I  think  I  see  it 
now — so  inspired  with  gratitude  and  humour  as  to  render  all 
words  needless.  He  had  a  rare  sense  of  tact  and  gratitude. 
Soon  after  I  was  sitting  out  of  doors  among  a  few  ladies, 
when  the  Indian,  who  had  divined  that  I  was  short  of  Chip- 
peway  and  wished  to  learn,  stalked  up,  and  pointing  to  our 
beauty,  said  gravely,  squoah — i.  e.,  woman.  Then  he  indi 
cated  several  other  articles,  told  me  the  Indian  name  for 
each,  and  walked  away.  It  was  all  he  could  do.  The  ladies, 
who  could  not  imagine  why  this  voluntary  lesson  was  given 
to  me,  were  much  amused  at  it.  But  /  understood  it ;  he  had 
seen  the  Injun  in  me  at  a  glance,  and  knew  what  I  wanted 
most ! 

One  night  we  stopped  at  a  place  called  Kettle  River.  It 
was  very  picturesque.  Over  the  rushing  stream  the  high 
rocky  banks  actually  overhung  the  water.  I  got  into  a  birch 
canoe  with  my  wife,  and  two  Indian  boys  paddled  us,  while 
others  made  a  great  fire  on  the  cliff  above,  which  illuminated 
the  scene.  Other  Indian  youths  jumped  into  the  water  and 
swam  about  and  skylarked,  whooping  wildly.  It  reminded  me 
strangely  of  the  Blue  Grotto  of  Capri,  where  our  boatmen 
jumped  in  and  swam  in  a  sulphur-azure  glow,  only  that  this 
was  red  in  the  firelight. 

Our  whisky  ran  short — it  always  does  on  all  such  excur 
sions— «-and  our  drivers  in  consequence  became  very  "  short  " 
also,  or  rather  unruly.  But  Ion  chemin,  mal  chemin,  we 
went  on,  and  the  ladies,  as  I  had  predicted,  pulled  through 
merrily. 

One  day,  at  a  halt,  I  found,  with  the  ladies,  in  the  woods 
by  a  stream,  a  pretty  sight.  It  was  a  wigwam,  which  was 
very  open,  and  which  had  been  made  to  look  like  a  bower 
with  green  boughs.  "When  I  was  in  the  artillery  I  was  the  only 
person  who  ever  thus  adorned  our  tent  in  Indian  style.  It  is 
very  pleasant  on  a  warm  day,  and  looks  artistic.  In  the  wig- 


356  MEMOIRS. 

warn  sat  a  pretty  Indian  woman  with  a  babe.  The  ladies 
were,  of  course,  at  once  deeply  interested,  but  the  Indian 
could  not  speak  English.  One  of  the  Indies  had  a  common 
Japanese  fan,  with  the  picture  of  a  grotesque  god,  and  I  at 
once  saw  my  way  to  interest  our  hostess. 

I  once  read  in  the  journal  of  a  missionary's  wife  in  Can 
ada  that  she  had  a  curious  Malay  or  Cingalese  dagger,  with 
a  curved  blade  and  wooden  sheath,  while  on  the  handle  was 
the  figure  of  an  idol.  One  day  she  showed  this  to  an  Indian, 
and  the  next  day  he  came  with  five  more,  and  these  again 
with  fifteen,  till  it  seemed  as  if  the  whole  country  had  gone 
wild  over  it.  Very  much  alarmed  at  such  heathenism,  the 
lady  locked  it  up  and  would  show  it  no  more.  Ere  she  did 
so,  she  asked  an  old  Indian  how  it  was  possible  to  make  a 
scabbard  of  one  piece  of  wood,  with  a  hole  in  it  to  fit  the 
blade.  This  man,  who  had  been  one  of  the  most  devoted 
admirers  of  the  deity  on  the  handle,  saw  no  puzzle  in  this. 
He  explained  that  the  hole  was  burned  in  by  heating  the 
blade. 

I  showed  the  god  on  the  fan  to  the  Indian  woman,  and 
said,  "Manitfi — Tctcliee  manitu"  ("a  god — a  great  god"). 
She  saw  at  once  that  it  was  heathen,  and  her  heart  went 
out  unto  it  with  great  delight.  "With  a  very  few  Chippeway 
words  and  many  signs  I  explained  to  her  that  forty  days' 
journey  from  us  was  the  sea,  and  forty  days  beyond  another 
country  where  the  people  had  this  manitoii.  I  believe  that  the 
lady  gave  her  the  fan,  and  it  may  be  that  she  worships  it  to 
this  day.  How  absurd  it  is  to  try  to  force  on  such  people 
Catholic  or  Protestant  forms,  which  they  do  not  understand 
and  never  will,  while  their  souls  take  in  with  joy  the  poly- 
pantheistic  developments  of  snpernaturalism,  and  that  which 
suits  their  lives.  Like  the  little  boy  who  tliounld  he  would 
like  to  have  a  Testament,  but  knew  he  wanted  a  squirt,  the 
Indian,  unable  to  rise  to  the  grandeur  of  monotheistic  trini- 
tarianism,  is  delighted  with  goblins,  elves,  and  sorcery.  He 
can  manage  the  squirt. 


LIFE  OX  THE  PRESS.  357 

At  Fond-du-Lac  I  became  acquainted  with  a  Mr.  Duffy, 
a  very  genial  and  clever  man,  a  son  of  a  former  governor  of 
Rhode  Island.  He  had  an  Indian  wife  and  family,  and  was 
looked  up  to  by  the  Indians  as  Kitchimokomon,  "  the  white 
man."  That  he  was  a  gentleman  will  appear  from  the  fol 
lowing  incident.  There  was  one  of  our  party  who,  to  put  it 
mildly,  was  not  remarkable  for  refinement.  A  trader  at 
Fond-du-Lac  had  a  very  remarkable  carved  Indian  pipe,  for 
which  he  asked  me  fifteen  dollars.  It  certainly  was  rather  a 
high  price,  so  I  offered  ten.  Immediately  the  man  of  whom 
I  spoke  laid  down  fifteen  dollars  and  took  the  pipe.  He  was 
dans  son  droit,  but  the  action  was  churlish.  It  seemed  so  to 
Duffy,  who  was  standing  by.  After  I  had  returned  to  Phila 
delphia,  Mr.  Duffy  sent  me  a  very  handsome  pipe  for  a  pres 
ent,  which  he  assured  me  had  been  smoked  at  two  grand 
councils.  He  was  indeed  a  "  white  man." 

There  was  an  old  Indian  here  whose  name  in  In 
dian  meant  "  He  who  changes  his  position  while  sitting," 
but  white  people  called  him  Martin  "for  short."  He  was 
wont  to  smoke  a  very  handsome  pipe.  One  day,  seeing  him 
smoking  a  wretched  affair  rudely  hewn,  I  asked  him  if  he 
had  not  a  better.  He  replied,  "  I  had,  but  I  sold  it  to  the 
kcheemo-komon  iqueh  " — the  long-knife  woman  (i.  e.,  to  a 
white  lady).  Inquiry  proved  that  the  "long-knife  woman" 
was  Miss  Lottie  Foster,  a  very  beautiful  and  delicate  young 
lady  from  Philadelphia,  to  whom  such  a  barbaric  term  seemed 
strangely  applied.  As  for  me,  because  I  always  bought  every 
stone  pipe  which  I  could  get,  the  Indians  called  me  Poaugun 
or  Pipe.  Among  the  Algonkin  of  the  East  in  after-days  I 
had  a  name  which  means  he  who  seeks  hidden  things  (i.  0., 
mysteries). 

We  came  to  Duluth.  There  were  in  those  days  exactly 
six  houses  and  twenty-six  Indian  wigwams.  However,  we 
were  all  accommodated  somehow.  Here  there  were  grand 
conferences  of  the  railroad  kings  with  the  authorities  of  Du 
luth  and  Superior  City,  which  was  a  few  miles  distant,  and 


358  MEMOIRS. 

as  the  Dulutherans  outbid  the  Father  Superiors,  the  terminus 
of  the  road  was  fixed  at  Duluth. 

It  was  arranged  that  the  ladies  should  remain  at  Duluth, 
while  we,  the  men,  were  to  go  through  the  woods  to  examine 
a  situation  a  day's  march  distant.  We  had  Indians  to  carry 
our  luggage.  Every  man  took  a  blanket  and  a  cord,  put  his 
load  into  it,  turned  the  ends  over  the  cord,  and  then  drew  it 
up  like  a  bag.  They  carried  very  easily  from  150  to  250  Ibs. 
weight  for  thirty  miles  a  day  over  stock  and  stone,  up  and 
down  steep  banks  or  amid  rotten  crumbling  trees  and  moss. 
Though  a  good  walker,  I  could  not  keep  up  with  them. 

I  had  with  me  a  very  genial  and  agreeable  man  as  walk 
ing  companion.  His  name  was  Stewart,  and  he  was  mayor, 
chief  physician,  and  filled  half-a-dozen  other  leading  capaci 
ties  in  St.  Paul.  Our  fellow-travellers  vanished  in  the  for 
est.  Mayor  Stewart  and  I  with  one  Indian  carrier  found 
ourselves  at  two  o'clock  very  thirsty  indeed.  The  view  was 
beautiful  enough.  A  hundred  yards  below  us  by  the  steep 
precipice  rushed  the  St.  Lawrence,  but  we  could  not  get  at 
it  to  drink. 

Stewart  threw  himself  on  the  grass  in  despair.  "  Yes," 
he  cried,  "  we're  lost  in  the  wilderness,  and  I'm  going  to  die 
of  thirst.  Remember  me  to  my  family.  "  I  say,"  he  sud 
denly  cried,  "  ask  that  Injun  the  name  of  that  river." 

I  asked  of  the  Indian,  "  Wa  go  nin-iu  ?  "  ("  How  do  you 
call  that?")  Thinking  I  wanted  to  know  the  name  for  a 
stream,  he  replied,  "  Sebe."  This  is  the  same  as  sipi  in 
Missis-sippi. 

"  I  knew  it,"  groaned  Stewart.  "  There  is  no  such  river 
as  the  Sebe  laid  down  on  the  map.  We're  lost  in  an  unknown 
region." 

"It  occurs  to  me,"  I  said,  "that  this  is  a  judgment  on 
me.  When  I  think  of  the  number  of  times  in  my  life  when 
I  have  walked  past  bar-rooms  and  neglected  to  go  in  and  take 
a  drink,  I  must  think  that  it  is  a  retribution." 

"  And  I  say,"  replied  Stewart,  "  that  if  you  ever  do  get 


LIFE  ON   THE  PRESS.  359 

back  to  civilisation,  you'll  be  the  old  toper  that  ever 

was." 

When  we  came  to  the  camp  we  found  there  by  mere 
chance  a  large  party  of  surveyors.  As  there  were  thirty  or 
forty  of  us,  it  was  resolved,  as  so  many  white  men  had  never 
before  been  in  that  region,  to  constitute  a  township  and  elect 
a  member  to  the  Legislature,  or  Congress,  or  something — I 
forget  what ;  but  it  appeared  that  it  was  legal,  and  it  was 
actually  done — I  voting  with  the  rest  as  a  settler.  I,  too,  am 
a  Minnesot. 

We  railroad  people  formed  one  party  and  sat  at  our  even 
ing  meal  by  ourselves,  the  surveyors  made  another,  and  the 
Indians  a  third  table-d'hote.  An  open  tin  of  oysters  was  be 
fore  us,  and  somebody  said  they  were  not  good.  One  only 
needs  say  so  to  ruin  the  character  of  an  oyster — and  too  often 
of  "  a  human  bivalve,"  as  the  Indiana  orator  said.  We  were 
about  to  pitch  it  away,  when  I  asked  the  attendant  to  give  it 
to  the  Indians.  It  was  gravely  passed  by  them  from  man 
to  man  till  it  came  to  the  last,  who  lifted  it  to  his  mouth 
and  drank  off  the  entire  quart,  oysters  and  all,  as  if  it 
had  been  so  much  cider.  Amazed  at  this,  I  asked  what  it 
meant,  but  the  only  explanation  I  could  get  was,  "  He  like 
um  oyster." 

This  was  a  charming  excursion,  all  through  the  grene 
wode  wilde,  and  I  enjoyed  it.  I  had  Indian  society,  and 
learned  Indian  talk,  and  bathed  in  charming  rushing  waters, 
and  saw  enormous  pine  trees  300  feet  high,  and  slept  alfresco, 
and  ate  ad  libitum.  To  this  day  its  remembrance  inspires  in 
me  a  feeling  of  deep,  true  poetry. 

I  think  it  was  at  Duluth  that  one  morning  there  was 
brought  in  an  old  silver  cross  which  had  just  been  found  in 
an  Indian  grave  on  the  margin  of  the  lake,  not  very  far  away. 
I  went  there  with  some  others.  It  was  evidently  the  grave 
of  some  distinguished  man  who  had  been  buried  about  a  hun 
dred  years  ago.  There  were  the  decayed  remains  of  an  old- 
fashioned  gun,  and  thousands  of  small  beads  adhering,  still 


3  GO  MEMOIRS. 

in  pattern,  to  the  tibiae.  I  dug  up  myself — in  fact  they  al 
most  lay  on  the  surface,  the  sand  being  blown  away — several 
silver  bangles,  which  at  first  looked  exactly  like  birch-bark 
peelings,  and,  what  I  very  much  prized,  two  or  three  stone 
cylinders  or  tubes,  about  half  an  inch  in  diameter,  with  a 
hole  through  them.  Antiquaries  have  been  much  puzzled 
over  these,  some  thinking  that  they  were  musical  instru 
ments,  others  implements  for  gambling.  My  own  theory 
always  was  that  they  were  used  for  smoking  tobacco,  and  as 
those  which  I  found  were  actually  stuffed  full  of  dried  semi- 
decayed  "  fine  cut,"  I  still  hold  to  it.  I  also  purchased  from 
a  boy  a  red  stone  pipe-head,  which  was  found  in  the  same 
grave.  I  should  here  say  that  the  pipe  which  had  been 
bought  away  from  me  by  the  man  above  mentioned  had  on 
it  the  carving  of  a  reindeer,  which  rendered  it  to  me  alone  of 
living  men  peculiarly  valuable,  since  I  have  laboured  hard, 
and  subsequently  set  forth  in  my  "  Algonkin  Legends  "  the 
theory  that  the  Algonkin  Indians  went  far  to  the  North  and 
there  mingled  with  the  Norsemen  of  Greenland  and  Labra 
dor.  The  man  who  got  the  pipe  promised  to  leave  it  to  me 
when  he  died,  but  he  departed  from  life  and  never  kept  his 
word.  A  frequent  source  of  grief  to  me  has  been  to  see  ob 
jects  of  great  value,  illustrating  some  point  in  archaeology, 
seized  as  "  curiosities  "  by  ignorant  wealthy  folk.  The  most 
detestable  form  of  this  folly  is  the  buying  of  incunabula,  first 
editions  or  uncut  copies,  and  keeping  them  from  publication 
or  reading,  and,  in  short,  of  worshipping  anything,  be  it  a 
book  or  a  coin,  merely  because  it  is  rare.  Men  never  ex 
patiate  on  rariora  in  literature  or  in  china,  or  talk  cookery 
and  wines  over-much,  without  showing  themselves  prigs.  It 
is  not  any  beauty  in  the  thing,  but  the  delightful  sense  of 
their  own  culture  or  wealth  which  they  cultivate.  When 
there  is  nothing  in  a  thing  but  mere  rarity  and  cost  to  com 
mend  it,  it  is  absolutely  worthless,  as  is  the  learning  and  con- 
noisseurship  thereupon  dependent. 

Business  concluded,  we  took  a  steamboat,  and  were  very 


LIFE  ON  THE  PRESS.  361 

sea-sick  on  Lake  Superior  for  twenty-four  hours.  Then  we 
went  to  the  Isle  Royale,  and  saw  the  mines,  which  had  been 
worked  even  by  the  ancient  Mexicans ;  also  an  immense  mass 
of  amethysts.  The  country  here  abounds  in  agates.  At  Mar- 
quette  there  was  brought  on  board  a  single  piece  of  pure  vir 
gin  copper  from  the  mine  which  weighed  more  than  4,000 
pounds.  There  it  was,  I  think,  that  we  found  our  cars  wait 
ing,  and  returned  in  them  to  Philadelphia. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  my  brother  Henry  died,  and  his 
loss  inflicted  on  me  a  terrible  mental  blow,  which  went  far, 
subsequently,  to  bring  about  a  great  crisis  in  my  health.  My 
dear  brother  was  the  most  remarkable  illustration  of  the  fact 
that  there  are  men  who,  by  no  fault  of  their  own,  and  who, 
despite  the  utmost  honour  or  integrity,  deep  intelligence, 
good  education,  and  varied  talents,  are  overshadowed  all 
their  lives  by  sorrow,  and  meet  ill-luck  at  every  turn.  He 
went  at  sixteen  as  employe  into  a  Cuban  importing  house, 
where  he  learned  Spanish.  His  principal  failed,  and  thence 
he  passed  to  a  store  in  Xew  York,  where  he  worked  far  too 
hard  for  $600  a  year.  His  successor,  who  did  much  less,  was 
immediately  paid  82,500  per  annum.  Finding  that  his  em 
ployer  was  being  secretly  ruined  by  his  partner,  he  warned 
the  former,  but  only  with  the  result  of  being  severely  repri 
manded  by  the  merchant  and  my  father  as  a  mischief-maker. 
After  a  while  this  merchant  was  absolutely  ruined  and  bank 
rupted  by  his  partner,  as  he  himself  declared  to  me,  but,  like 
many  men,  still  kept  his  rancune  against  my  poor  brother. 
By  this  time  the  eyesight  and  health  of  Henry  quite  gave  out 
for  some  time.  Every  effort  which  he  made,  whether  to  get 
employment,  to  become  artist  or  writer,  failed.  He  published 
two  volumes  of  tales,  sporting  sketches,  &c.,  with  Lippincott, 
in  Philadelphia,  which  are  remarkable  for  originality.  One 
of  them  was  subsequently  written  out  by  another  distin 
guished  author  in  another  form.  I  do  not  say  it  was  after 
my  brother's,  for  I  have  known  another  case  in  which  two 
men,  having  heard  a  story  from  Barnum,  both  published  it, 


362  MEMOIRS. 

ignorant  that  the  other  had  done  so.  But  I  would  declare,  in 
justice  to  my  brother,  that  he  told  this  story,  which  I  am  sure 
the  reader  knows,  quite  as  well  as  did  the  other. 

He  travelled  a  great  deal,  was  eighteen  months  in  Rome 
and  its  vicinity,  visited  Algeria,  Egypt,  and  Cuba  and  the 
West,  always  spending  so  little  money  that  my  father  ex 
pressed  his  amazement  at  it.  I  regret  to  say  that  in  my 
youth  I  never  astonished  him  in  this  way.  But  this  morbid 
conscientiousness  or  delicacy  as  to  being  dependent  did  him 
no  good,  for  he  might  just  as  well  have  been  thoroughly  com 
fortable,  and  my  father  would  never  have  missed  it.  The 
feeling  that  he  could  get  no  foothold  in  life,  which  had  long 
troubled  me,  became  a  haunting  spectre  which  followed  him 
to  the  grave.  His  work  "  Americans  in  Rome  "  is  one  of  the 
cleverest,  most  sparkling,  and  brilliant  works  of  humour, 
without  a  trace  of  vulgarity,  ever  written  in  America.  It 
had  originally  some  such  title  as  "  Studios  and  Mountains," 
but  the  publisher,  thinking  that  the  miserable  clap-trap  title  of 
"  Americans  in  Rome  "  would  create  an  impression  that  there 
was  "  gossip,"  and  possibly  scandal,  in  it,  insisted  on  that.  It 
was  published  in  the  weary  panic  of  1862  in  the  war,  and  fell 
dead  from  the  press.  Though  he  never  really  laughed,  and 
Avas  generally  absolutely  grave,  my  brother  had  an  incredibly 
keen  sense  of  fun,  and  in  conversation  could  far  outmaster 
or  "  walk  over  the  head  "  of  any  humorist  whom  I  ever  met. 
He  was  very  far,  however,  from  showing  off  or  being  a  pro 
fessional  wit.  He  was  very  fond,  when  talking  with  men 
who  considered  themselves  clever,  of  making  jests  or  puns 
in  such  a  manner  and  in  such  an  unaffected  ordinary  tone  of 
voice  that  they  took  no  note  of  the  quodlibets.  He  enjoyed 
this  much  more  than  causing  a  laugh  or  being  complimented. 
But  taking  his  life  through,  he  was  simply  ifnfortunate  in 
everything,  and  his  worst  failures  were  when  he  made  wisely 
directed  energetic  efforts  to  benefit  himself  or  others.  He 
rarely  complained  or  grieved,  having  in  him  a  deep  fond  of 
what  I,  for  want  of  a  better  term,  call  Indian  nature,  or 


LIFE  ON  THE  PRESS.  363 

stoicism,  which  is  common  in  Americans,  and  utterly  incom 
prehensible  to,  or  rarely  found  in,  a  European. 

The  death  of  my  father  left  me  a  fifth  of  his  property, 
which  was  afterwards  somewhat  augmented  by  a  fourth 
share  of  my  poor  brother's  portion.  For  one  year  I  drew 
no  money  from  the  inheritance,  but  went  on  living  as  before 
on  my  earnings,  so  that  my  wife  remarked  it  really  took  me 
a  year  to  realise  that  I  had  any  money.  After  some  months 
I  bought  a  house  in  Locust  Street,  just  opposite  to  where 
my  father  had  lived,  and  in  this  house  I  remained  six  months 
previously  to  going  to  Europe  in  1869.  We  had  coloured 
servants,  and  I  never  in  all  my  life,  before  or  since,  lived  so 
well  as  during  this  time.  The  house  was  well  furnished ; 
there  was  eve'n  the  great  luxury  of  no  piano,  which  is  a  great 
condition  of  happiness. 

This  year  I  was  fearfully  busy.  As  I  had  taken  the  dra 
matic  criticism  in  hand,  for  which  alone  we  had  always  em 
ployed  a  man,  I  went  during  twelve  months  140  times  to  the 
opera,  and  every  evening  to  several  theatres,  et  cetera.  Once 
I  was  caught  beautifully.  There  had  been  an  opera  bouffe, 
the  "  Grande  Duchesse  "  or  something,  running  for  two  or 
three  weeks,  and  I  had  written  a  criticism  on  it.  This  was 
laid  over  by  "  press  of  matter,"  but  as  the  same  play  was  an 
nounced  for  the  next  night  with  the  same  performers,  we 
published  the  critique.  But  it  so  chanced  that  the  opera  by 
some  accident  was  not  played  !  The  Evening  Bulletin,  my 
old  paper,  rallied  me  keenly  on  this  blunder,  and  I  felt 
badly.  John  Forney,  jun.,  however,  said  it  was  mere  rub 
bish  of  no  consequence.  He  was  such  an  arrant  Bohemian 
and  hardened  son  of  the  press,  that  he  regarded  it  rather  as 
a  joke  and  a  feather  in  our  caps,  indicating  that  we  were  a 
bounding  lot,  and  not  tied  down  to  close  observances.  Truly 
this  is  a  very  fine  spirit  of  freedom,  but  it  may  be  carried  too 
far,  as  I  think  it  was  by  a  friend  of  mine,  who  had  but  one 
principle  in  life,  and  that  was  never  to  write  his  newspaper 
correspondence  in  the  place  from  which  it  was  dated.  It 


364  MEMOIRS. 

came  to  pass  that  about  three  weeks  after  this  retribution 
overtook  the  Bulletin,  for  it  also  published  a  review  of  an 
opera  which  was  not  sung,  but  I  meanly  passed  the  occur 
rence  by  without  comment.  When  a  man  hits  you,  it  is  far 
more  generous,  manly,  and  fraternal  to  hit  him  back  a  good 
blow  than  to  degrade  him  by  silent  contempt. 

The  Presidential  campaign  between  Grant  and  Johnson 
was  beginning  to  warm  up.  Colonel  Forney  was  in  a  cy 
clone  of  hard  work  between  Washington,  Pennsylvania,  and 
New  York,  carrying  on  a  thousand  plots  and  finely  or 
coarsely  drawn  intrigues,  raising  immense  sums,  speaking  in 
public,  and,  not  to  put  it  too  finely,  buying  or  trading  votes 
in  a  thousand  tortuous  or  "  mud-turtlesome  and  possum-like 
ways" — for  non  possumus  was  not  in  his  Latin.  Never 
shall  I  forget  the  disgust  and  indignation  with  which  the 
great  Republican  champion  entered  the  office  one  evening, 
and,  flinging  himself  on  a  chair,  declared  that  votes  in  New 
Jersey  had  gone  up  to  sixty  dollars  a  head !  And  I  was 
forced  to  admit  that  sixty  dollars  for  a  Jerseyman  did  seem 
to  be  an  exorbitant  price.  So  he  went  forth  on  the  war-path 
with  fresh  paint  and  a  sharp  tomahawk. 

It  often  happened  to  me  in  his  absence  to  have  very  cu 
rious  and  critical  decisions  in  my  power.  One  of  these  is  the 
"  reading  in "  or  "  reading  out "  of  a  man  from  his  party. 
This  is  invariably  done  by  a  leading  political  newspaper.  I 
remember,  for  instance,  a  man  who  had  been  very  prominent 
in  politics,  and  gone  over  to  the  Democrats,  imploring  me  to 
readmit  him  to  the  fold ;  but,  as  I  regarded  him  as  a  mere 
office-hunter,  I  refused  to  do  it.  Excommunicatus  sit! 

There  was  a  very  distinguished  and  able  man  in  a  very 
high  position.  To  him  I  had  once  addressed  a  letter  begging 
a  favour  which  would  have  been  nothing  at  all  to  grant,  but 
which  was  of  great  importance  to  me,  and  he  had  taken  no 
notice  of  it.  It  came  to  pass  that  we  had  in  our  hands  to 
publish  certain  very  damaging  charges  against  this  great 
man.  He  found  it  out,  and,  humiliated,  I  may  say  agonised 


LIFE  ON  THE  PRESS.  3£5 

with  shame  and  fear,  he  called  with  a  friend,  begging  that 
the  imputations  might  not  be  published.  I  believe  from  my 
soul  that  if  I  had  not  been  so  badly  treated  by  him  I  should 
have  refused  his  request,  but,  as  it  was,  I  agreed  to  withdraw 
the  charges.  It  was  the  very  best  course,  as  I  afterwards 
found.  I  am  happy  to  say  that,  in  after  years,  and  in  other 
lands,  he  showed  himself  very  grateful  to  me.  I  am  by  na 
ture  as  vindictive  as  an  unconverted  Indian,  and  as  I  am 
deeply  convinced  that  it  is  vile  and  wicked,  I  fight  vigor 
ously  against  it.  In  my  Illustrated  Neivs  days  in  New  York 
I  used  to  keep  an  old  German  hymn  pasted  up  before  rne  in 
the  sanctum  to  remind  me  not  to  be  revengeful.  Out  of  all 
such  battling  of  opposing  principles  come  good  results.  I 
feel  this  in  another  form  in  the  warring  within  me  of  super 
stitious  feelings  and  scientific  convictions. 

It  became  apparent  that  on  Pennsylvania  depended  the 
election  of  President.  The  State  had  only  been  prevented 
from  turning  Copperhead-Democrat — which  was  the  same 
as  seceding — by  the  incredible  exertions  of  the  Union 
League,  led  by  George  II.  Boker,  and  the  untiring  aid  of 
Colonel  Forney.  But  even  now  it  was  very  uncertain,  and 
in  fact  the  election — on  which  the  very  existence  of  the 
Union  virtually  depended — was  turned  by  only  a  few  hun 
dred  votes ;  and,  as  Colonel  Forney  and  George  II.  Boker 
admitted,  it  would  have  been  lost  but  for  what  I  am  going  to 
narrate. 

There  were  many  thousand  Republican  Clubs  all  through 
the  State,  but  they  had  no  one  established  official  organ  or 
newspaper.  This  is  of  vast  importance,  because  such  an  or 
gan  is  sent  to  doubtful  voters  in  large  numbers,  and  gives  the 
keynote  or  clue  for  thousands  of  speeches  and  to  men  stump 
ing  or  arguing.  It  occurred  to  me  early  to  make  the  Weekly 
Press  this  organ.  I  employed  a  young  man  to  go  to  the 
League  and  copy  all  the  names  and  addresses  of  all  the  thou 
sands  of  Republican  clubs  in  the  State.  Then  I  had  the 
paper  properly  endorsed  by  the  League,  and  sent  a  copy  to 


366  MEMOIRS. 

every  club  at  cost  price  or  for  nothing.  This  proved  to  be  a 
tremendous  success.  It  cost  us  money,  but  Colonel  Forney 
never  cared  for  that,  and  he  greatly  admired  the  coup.  I 
made  the  politics  hot,  to  suit  country  customers.  I  found 
the  gun  and  Colonel  Forney  the  powder  and  ball,  and  be 
tween  us  we  made  a  hit. 

One  day  Frank  Wells,  of  the  Bulletin  (very  active  indeed 
in  the  Union  League),  met  me  and  asked  if  I,  since  I  had 
lived  in  Xew  York,  could  tell  them  anything  as  to  what  kind 
of  a  man  George  Francis  Train  really  was.  "  He  has  come 
over  all  at  once,"  he  said,  "  from  the  Democratic  party,  and 
wishes  to  stump  Pennsylvania,  if  we  will  pay  him  his  ex 
penses."  I  replied — 

"  I  know  Train  personally,  and  understand  him  better 
than  most  men.  .  He  is  really  a  very  able  speaker  for  a  popu 
lar  American  audience,  and  will  be  of  immense  service  if 
rightly  managed.  But  you  must  get  some  steady,  sensible 
man  to  go  with  him  and  keep  him  in  hand  and  regulate  ex 
penses,  &c." 

It  was  done.  After  the  election  I  conversed  with  the  one 
who  had  been  the  bear-leader,  and  he  said — 

"It  was  an  immense  success.  Train  made  thousands  of 
votes,  and  was  a  most  effective  speaker.  His  mania  for 
speaking  was  incredible.  One  day,  after  addressing  two  or 
three  audiences  at  different  towns,  we  stopped  at  another  to 
dine.  While  waiting  for  the  soup,  I  heard  a  voice  as  of  a 
public  speaker,  and  looking  out,  saw  Train  standing  on  a 
load  of  hay,  addressing  a  thousand  admiring  auditors." 

There  are  always  many  men  who  claim  to  have  carried 
every  Presidential  election — the  late  Mr.  Guiteau  was  one  of 
these  geniuses — but  it  is  also  true  that  there  are  many  who 
would  by  not  working  have  produced  very  great  changes. 
Forney  was  a  mighty  wire-puller,  if  not  exactly  before  the 
Lord,  at  least  before  the  elections,  and  he  opined  that  I  had 
secured  the  success.  There  were  certainly  other  men — e.  g., 
Peacock,  who  influenced  as  many  votes  as  the  Weekly  Press, 


LIFE  ON  THE  PRESS.  367 

and  George  Francis  Train — without  whose  aid  Pennsylvania 
and  Grant's  election  would  have  been  lost,  but  it  is  something 
to  have  been  one  of  the  few  who  did  it. 

When  General  Grant  came  in,  he  resolved  to  have  nothing 
to  do  with  "  corrupt  old  politicians,"  even  though  they  had 
clone  him  the  greatest  service.  So  he  took  up  with  a  lot  of 
doubly  corrupt  young  ones,  who  were  only  inferior  to  the 
veterans  in  ability.  Colonel  Forney  was  snubbed  cruelly,  in 
order  to  rob  him.  Whatever  he  had  done  wrongly,  he  had 
done  his  work  rightly,  and  if  Grant  intended  to  throw  his 
politicians  overboard,  he  should  have  informed  them  of  it 
before  availing  himself  of  their  services.  His  conduct  was 
like  that  of  the  old  lady  who  got  a  man  to  saw  three  cords  of 
wood  for  her,  and  then  refused  to  pay  him  because  he  had 
been  divorced. 

I  had  never  in  my  life  asked  for  an  office  from  anybody. 
Mr.  Charles  A.  Dana  once  said  that  the  work  I  did  for  the 
Kepublican  party  on  Vanity  Fair  alone  was  worth  a  foreign 
mission,  and  that  was  a  mere  trifle  to  what  I  did  with  the 
Continental  Magazine,  my  pamphlet,  &c.  When  Grant  was 
President,  I  petitioned  that  a  little  consulate  worth  $1,000 
(£200)  might  be  given  to  a  poor  Episcopal  clergyman,  but  a 
man  accustomed  to  consular  work,  who  spoke  French,  and 
who  had  been  secretary  to  two  commodores.  It  was  for  a 
small  French  town.  It  was  supported  by  Forney  and  George 
H.  Boker ;  but  it  was  refused  because  I  was  "  in  Forney's 
set,"  and  the  consulate  was  given  to  a  Western  man  who  did 
not  know  French. 

If  John  Forney,  instead  of  using  all  his  immense  influ 
ence  for  Grant,  had  opposed  him  tooth  and  nail,  he  could 
not  have  been  treated  with  more  scornful  neglect.  The  pre 
tence  for  this  was  that  Forney  had  defaulted  $40,000!  I 
know  every  detail  of  the  story,  and  it  is  this : — While  Forney 
was  in  Europe,  an  agent  to  whom  he  had  confided  his  affairs 
did  take  money  to  that  amount.  As  soon  as  Forney  learned 
this,  he  promptly  raised  $40,000  by  mortgage  on  his  prop- 


368  MEMOIRS. 

erty,  and  repaid  the  deficit.  Even  his  euemy  Simon  Cam 
eron  declared  he  did  not  believe  the  story,  and  the  engine  of 
his  revenge  was  always  run  by  "  one  hundred  Injun  power." 

I  had  "  met "  Grant  several  times,  when  one  day  in  Lon 
don  I  was  introduced  to  him  again.  He  said  that  he  was 
very  happy  to  make  my  acquaintance.  I  replied,  "  General 
Grant,  I  have  had  the  pleasure  of  being  introduced  to  you 
six  times  already,  and  I  hope  for  many  happy  renewals  of  it." 
A  week  or  two  after,  this  appeared  in  Punch,  adapted  to  a 
professor  and  a  duchess. 

When  the  Sanitary  Fair  was  held  in  Philadelphia  in  18G3, 
a  lady  in  New  York  wrote  to  Garibaldi,  begging  him  for 
some  personal  souvenir  to  be  given  to  the  charity.  Garibaldi 
replied  by  actually  sending  the  dagger  which  he  had  carried 
in  every  engagement,  expressing  in  a  letter  a  hope  that  it 
might  pass  to  General  Grant.  But  a  warm  partisan  of  Mc- 
Clellan  so  arranged  it  that  there  should  be  an  election  for 
the  dagger  between  the  partisans  of  Grant  and  McClellan, 
every  one  voting  to  pay  a  dollar  to  the  Fair.  For  a  long 
time  the  McClellanites  were  in  a  majority,  but  at  the  last 
hour  Miss  Anna  M.  Lea,  now  Mrs.  Lea  Merritt,  very  cleverly 
brought  down  a  party  of  friends,  who  voted  for  Grant,  secured 
the  dagger  for  him,  and  so  carried  out  the  wish  of  Garibaldi. 
Long  after  an  amusing  incident  occurred  relative  to  this. 
In  conversation  in  London  with  Mrs.  Grant,  I  asked  her  if 
the  dagger  had  been  received.  She  replied,  "  Oh,  yes,"  and 
then  added  naively,  "  but  wasn't  it  really  all  a  humbug  ?  " 

The  death  of  my  father  and  brother  within  a  year,  the 
sudden  change  in  my  fortunes,  the  Presidential  campaign, 
and,  above  all,  the  working  hard  seven  days  in  the  week,  had 
been  too  much  for  me.  I  began  to  find,  little  by  little,  that 
I  could  not  execute  half  the  work  to  which  I  was  accustomed. 
Colonel  Forney  was  very  kind  indeed,  and  never  said  a  word. 
But  I  began  to  apprehend  that  a  break-down  in  my  health 
was  impending.  I  needed  change  of  scene,  and  so  resolved, 
finding,  after  due  consideration,  that  I  had  enough  to  live  on, 


LIFE  ON  THE  PRESS.  3C9 

to  go  abroad  for  a  long  rest.  It  proved  to  be  a  very  wise  re 
solve.  So  I  rented  my  house,  packed  my  trunks,  and  depart 
ed,  to  be  gone  "  for  a  year  or  two." 

I  would  say,  in  concluding  this  chapter,  that  Colonel  John 
Forney  was  universally  credited,  with  perfect  justice,  as  hav 
ing  carried  Grant's  election.  When  Grant  was  about  to  deliver 
his  inaugural  speech,  a  stranger  who  stood  by  me,  looking  at 
the  immense  expectant  crowd,  remarked  to  a  friend,  "  This 
is  a  proud  day  for  John  Forney !  "  "  Yes,"  replied  the  other, 
"  the  Dead  Duck  has  elected  Grant."  But  Forney  cheerfully 
and  generously  declared  that  it  was  the  Weekly  Press  which 
had  carried  Pennsylvania,  and  that  I  had  managed  it  entirely 
alone.  All  these  things  were  known  to  thousands  at  the  time, 
but  we  lived  in  such  excitement  that  we  made  but  little  ac 
count  thereof.  However,  there  are  men  of  good  repute  still 
living  who  will  amply  confirm  all  that  I  have  said  of  my  work 
on  the  Continental  Magazine;  and  that  Abraham  Lincoln 
himself  did  actually  credit  me  with  this  is  proved  by  the  fol 
lowing  incident.  Because  I  had  so  earnestly  advocated  Eman 
cipation  as  a  war  measure  at  a  time  when  even  the  most  fiery 
and  advanced  Abolition  papers,  such  as  the  Tribune,  were 
holding  back  and  shouting  pas  trop  de  zele — and  as  it  proved 
wisely,  by  advocating  it  publicly — merely  as  a  war  measure — 
the  President,  at  the  request  of  George  H.  Boker,  actually 
signed  for  me  fifty  duplicate  very  handsome  copies  of  the 
Proclamation  of  Emancipation  on  parchment  paper,  to  every 
one  of  which  Mr.  Seward  also  added  his  signature.  One  of 
these  is  now  hanging  up  in  the  British  Museum  as  my  gift. 
I  perfectly  understood  and  knew  at  the  time,  as  did  all  con 
cerned,  that  this  was  a  recognition,  and  a  very  graceful  and 
appropriate  one,  of  what  I  had  done  for  Emancipation — 
Harvard  having  A.M.'d  me  for  the  same.  The  copies  I  pre 
sented  to  the  Sanitary  Fair  to  be  sold  for  its  benefit,  but  there 
was  not  much  demand  for  them ;  what  were  left  over  I  divided 
with  George  Boker. 


VII. 
EUROPE    REVISITED. 

18G9-1870. 

Voyage  on  the  Pereire — General  Washburne — I  am  offered  a  command 
in  another  French  Revolution — Paris — J.  Meredith  Read  and  Pre- 
vost  Paradol — My  health — Spa — J.  C.  llotten — Octave  Delepierre — 
Pleidelberg — Dresden — Julian  Hawthorne  and  G.  Lathrop — Verona 
— Venice — Rome — \V.  W.  Story — Florence — Lorimer  Graham — 
'•  Breitmann  "  in  the  Royal  Family — Tuscany. 

WE  sailed  on  the  famed  Pereire  from  New  York  to  Brest 
in  May,  18G9.  We  had  not  left  port  before  a  droll  incident 
occurred.  On  the  table  in  the  smoking-room  la}7  a  copy  of 
the  "  Ballads  of  Hans  Breitmann."  A  fellow-passenger  asked 
me,  "Is  that  your  book?"  I  innocently  replied,  "Yes." 
" Excuse  me,  sir,"  cried  another,  " it  is  mine"  " I  beg  your 
pardon,"  I  replied,  "  but  it  is  really  mine."  "  Sir,  I  bought  it." 
"  I  don't  care  if  you  did,"  I  replied ;  "  it  is  mine — for  I  wrote 
it."  There  was  a  roar  of  laughter,  and  we  all  became  ac 
quainted  at  once. 

General  Washburne  was  among  the  passengers.  He  had 
been  appointed  Minister  to  France  and  was  going  to  Paris, 
where  he  subsequently  distinguished  himself  during  the  siege 
by  literally  taking  the  place  of  seven  foreign  Ministers  who 
had  left,  and  kindly  caring  for  all  their  proteges.  It  never 
occurred  to  the  old  frontiersman  to  leave  a  place  or  his  duties 
because  fighting  was  going  on.  I  had  a  fine  twelve-feet  blue 
Indian  blanket,  which  I  had  bought  somewhere  beyond 
Leavenworth  of  a  trader.  When  sitting  on  deck  wrapped  in 
it,  the  General  would  finger  a  fold  lovingly,  and  say,  "  Ah  ! 
the  Indians  always  have  good  blankets ! " 


EUROPE  REVISITED.  3 71 

We  arrived  in  Brest,  and  Mrs.  Leland,  who  had  never 
before  been  in  Europe,  was  much  pleased  at  her  first  sight, 
early  in  the  morning,  of  a  French  city ;  the  nuns,  soldiers, 
peasants,  and  all,  as  seen  from  our  window,  were  indeed  very 
picturesque.  We  left  that  day  by  railway  for  Paris,  and  on 
the  road  a  rather  remarkable  incident  occurred.  There  was 
seated  opposite  to  us  a  not  very  amiable-looking  man  of  thirty, 
who  might  be  of  the  superior  class  of  mechanics,  and  who 
evidently  regarded  us  with  an  evil  eye,  either  because  we  were 
suspected  Anglais  or  aristocrats.  I  resolved  that  he  should 
become  amicable.  Ill-tempered  though  he  might  be,  he  was 
still  polite,  for  at  every  stopping-place  he  got  out  to  smoke, 
and  extinguished  his  cigar  ere  he  re-entered.  I  said  to  him, 
"  Madame  begs  that  you  will  not  inconvenience  yourself  so 
much — pray  continue  to  smoke  in  here."  This  melted  him, 
as  it  would  any  Frenchman.  Seeing  that  he  was  reading  the 
Rappel,  I  conversed  "liberally."  I  told  him  that  I  had  been 
captain  of  barricades  in  Forty-eight,  and  described  in  full  the 
taking  of  the  Tuileries.  His  blood  was  fired,  and  he  con 
fided  to  me  all  the  details  of  a  grand  plot  for  a  Revolution 
which  he  was  going  up  to  Paris  to  attend  to,  and  offered  me 
a  prominent  place  among  the  conspirators,  assuring  me  that 
I  should  have  a  glorious  opportunity  to  fight  again  at  the 
barricades !  I  was  appalled  at  his  want  of  discretion,  but 
said  nothing.  Sure  enough,  there  came  the  emeute,  of  the 
plebiscite,  as  he  had  predicted,  but  it  was  suppressed.  George 
Boker  wrote  to  me  :  "  When  I  heard  of  a  revolution  in  Paris, 
I  knew  at  once  that  you  must  have  arrived  and  had  got  to 
work."  And  when  I  told  him  that  I  knew  of  it  in  advance, 
and  had  had  a  situation  offered  me  as  leader,  he  dryly  replied, 
"  Oh,  I  suppose  so — as  a  matter  of  course."  It  was  certainly 
a  strange  coincidence  that  I  left  Paris  in  Forty-eight  as  a 
Revolutionary  suspect,  and  re-entered  it  in  1870  in  very  nearly 
the  same  capacity. 

We  found  agreeable  lodgings  at  the  Rond  Point  of  the 
Champs  Elysees.  The  day  after  our  arrival  1  determined  to 


372  MEMOIRS. 

arrange  the  terms  of  living  with  our  landlord.  He  and  his 
wife  had  the  reputation  of  being  fearful  screws  in  their 
"  items."  So  he,  thinking  I  was  a  newly  arrived  and  per 
fectly  ignorant  American,  began  to  draw  the  toils,  and  enu 
merate  so  much  for  the  rooms,  so  much  for  every  towel,  so 
much,  I  believe,  for  salt  and  every  spoon  and  fork.  I  asked 
him  how  much  he  would  charge  for  everything  in  the  lump. 
He  replied,  "Mais,  Monsieur,  nous  ne  faisons  pas  jamais 
comme  cela  a  Paris"  Out  of  all  patience,  I  burst  out  into 
vernacular :  "  Sacre  nom  de  Dieu  et  mille  tonnerres,  vieux 
galopin !  you  dare  to  tell  me,  a  vieux  carabin  du  Quartier 
Latin,  that  you  cannot  make  arrangements !  Et  depuisse- 
quand,  s'il  vous  plait  ?  "  *  He  stared  at  me  in  blank  amaze 
ment,  and  then  said  with  a  smile :  "  Tiens !  Monsieur  est 
done  de  nous !  "  "  That  I  am,"  I  replied,  and  we  at  once 
made  a  satisfactory  compromise. 

We  had  pleasant  friends,  and  saw  the  sights  and  shopped  ; 
but  I  began  to  feel  in  Paris  for  the  first  time  that  the  dreaded 
break-down  or  collapse  which  I  had  long  apprehended  was 
coming  over  me.  There  was  a  very  clever  surgeon  and 
physician  named  Laborde,  who  was  called  Nelaton's  right- 
hand  man.  I  met  him  several  times,  and  he  observed  to  a 
mutual  friend  that  I  was  evidently  suffering  seriously  from 
threatening  nervous  symptoms,  and  that  he  would  like  to 
attend  me.  He  did  so,  and  gave  me  daily  a  teaspoonful  of 
bromide  of  potassium.  This  gave  me  sleep  and  appetite ; 
but,  after  some  weeks  or  months,  the  result  was  a  settled, 
mild  melancholy  and  tendency  to  rest.  In  fact,  it  was  nearly 
eighteen  months  before  I  recovered  so  that  I  could  write  or 
work,  and  live  as  of  old. 

I  had  inherited  from  both  parents,  and  suffered  all  my 
life  fearfully  at  intervals,  from  brachycephalic  or  dorsal 
neuralgia.  Dr.  Laborde  made  short  work  of  this  by  giving 
me  appallingly  strong  doses  of  tincture  of  aconite  and  sul- 

*  For  depuisse-quand,  vide  Paul  de  Kock. 


EUROPE  REVISITED.  373 

pJiate  of  quinine.  Chemists  have  often  been  amazed  at  the 
prescription.  But  in  elite  time  the  trouble  quite  disappeared, 
and  I  now,  laus  Deo !  very  rarely  ever  have  a  touch  of  it. 
As  many  persons  suffer  terribly  from  this  disorder,  which  is 
an  aching  in  the  back  of  the  head  and  neck  accompanied  by 
"  sick  headache,"  I  give  the  ingredients  of  the  cure  ;  the 
proper  quantity  must  be  determined  by  the  physician.* 

We  dined  once  with  Mr.  Washburne,  who  during  dinner 
showed  his  extreme  goodness  of  heart  in  a  very  characteristic 
manner.  Some  foolish  American  had  during  the  emeute — in 
which  I  was  to  have  been  a  leader,  had  I  so  willed — got  him 
self  into  trouble,  not  by  fighting,  but  through  mere  prying 
Yankee  "  curiosity "  and  mingling  with  the  crowd.  Such 
people  really  deserve  to  be  shot  more  than  any  others,  for 
they  get  in  the  way  and  spoil  good  fighting.  He  was  de 
servedly  arrested,  and  sent  for  his  Minister,  who,  learning  it, 
at  once  arose,  drove  to  the  prefecture,  and  delivered  his  in 
quisitive  compatriot.  On  another  occasion  we  were  the  guests 
of  J.  Meredith  Eead,  then  our  Minister  to  Athens,  where  we 
met  Prevost  Paradol.  But  at  this  time  there  suddenly  came 
over  me  a  distaste  for  operas,  theatres,  dinners,  society — in 
short,  of  crowds,  gaslight,  and  gaiety  in  any  form,  from  which 
I  have  never  since  quite  recovered.  I  had  for  years  been  fear 
fully  overdoing  it  all  in  America,  and  now  I  was  in  the  re 
action,  and  longed  for  rest.  I  was  in  that  state  when  one 
could  truly  say  that  life  would  be  tolerable  but  for  its  amuse 
ments.  It  is  usual  for  most  people  to  insist  in  such  cases 
that  what  the  sufferer  needs  is  "  excitement "  and  "  distrac 
tion  of  the  mind,"  change  of  scene  or  gaiety,  when  in  reality 
the  patient  should  be  most  carefully  trained  to  repose,  which 
is  not  always  easily  done,  for  so  very  little  attention  has  been 


*  On  due  reflection,  I  believe  that  I  have  here  had  a  slip  of  memory. 
It  was  not  till  after  a  year,  when  returning  from  Italy,  that  these  inci 
dents  occurred.    But  as  it  is  all  strictly  true  in  every  detail,  I  let  it 
remain,  as  of  little  consequence. 
IT 


374  MEMOIRS. 

paid  to  this  great  truth,  that  even  medical  science  as  yet  can 
do  very  little  towards  calming  nervous  disorders.  In  most 
cases  the  trouble  lies  in  the  presence,  or  unthinking  heedless 
influence,  of  other  people ;  and,  secondly,  in  the  absence  of 
interesting  minor  occupations  or  arts,  such  as  keep  the  mind 
busy,  yet  not  over-excited  or  too  deeply  absorbed.  An  im 
portant  element  in  such  cases  is  to  interest  deeply  the  patient 
in  himself  as  a  vicious  subject  to  be  subdued  by  his  own  ex 
ertions.  No  one  who  has  never  had  the  gout  severely  can 
form  any  conception  of  the  terribly  arrogant  irritability  which 
accompanies  it.  I  say  arrogant,  because  it  is  independent 
of  any  voluntary  action  of  the  mind.  I  have  often  felt  it 
raging  in  me,  and  laughed  at  it,  as  if  it  were  a  chained  wild 
beast,  and  conversed  with  perfect  serenity.  Unfortunately, 
even  our  dearest  friends,  generally  women,  cannot,  to  save  their 
very  lives  and  souls,  refrain  from  having  frequent  piquant 
scenes  with  such  tempting  subjects ;  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  subjects  are  often  led  by  mere  vanity  into  exhibiting 
themselves  as  something  peculiar.  Altogether,  I  believe 
that  where  there  is  no  deeply  seated  hereditary  or  congenital 
defect,  or  no  displacement  or  injury  from  violence  or  disease, 
there  is  always  a  cure  to  be  hoped  for,  or  at  least  possible ; 
but  this  cure  depends  in  many  cases  so  very  much  upon  the 
wisdom  and  patience  of  friends  and  physicians,  that  it  is  only 
remarkable  that  we  find  so  many  recoveries  as  we  do.  AYhere 
the  patient  and  friends  are  all  really  persons  of  superior  in 
telligence,  almost  miraculous  cures  may  be  effected.  But 
unfortunately,  if  it  be  not  born  in  us,  it  requires  a  great  deal 
of  genius  to  acquire  properly  the  real  dolce  far  niente. 

From  Paris  we  went  to  Spa  in  the  Ardennes.  In  this 
very  beautiful  place,  in  a  picturesque  land  of  legends,  I  felt 
calmer  and  more  relieved.  I  think  it  was  there  that  for  the 
first  time  I  got  an  inkling  that  my  name  was  becoming 
known  in  Europe.  There  was  a  beautiful  young  English 
lady  whom  I  occasionally  met  in  an  artist's  studio,  who  one 
dav  asked  me  with  some  interest  whom  the  Leland  could  be 


EUROPE  REVISITED.  375 

of  whom  one  heard  sometimes — "  he  writes  books,  I  think." 
I  told  her  that  I  had  a  brother  who  had  written  two  or  three 
clever  works,  and  she  agreed  with  me  that  he  must  be  the 
man  ;  still  she  inclined  to  think  that  the  name  was  not 
Henry,  but  Charles. 

Mr.  Nicolas  Triibner,  whom  I  had  not  seen  since  1856, 
came  with  his  wife  and  daughter  to  Spa,  and  this  was  the 
beginning  of  a  great  intimacy  which  lasted  to  his  death. 
Which  meeting  reminds  me  of  something  amusing.  I  had 
written  the  first  third  of  "  Breitmann  as  a  Politician,"  which 
J.  "  Camden  "  Hotten  had  republished,  promising  the  public 
to  give  them  the  rest  before  long.  This  I  prevented  by  copy 
righting  the  two  remaining  thirds  in  England  !  Being  very 
angry  at  this,  Hotten  accused  me  in  print  of  having  written 
this  conclusion  expressly  to  disappoint  and  injure  him!  In 
fact,  he  really  seemed  to  think  that  Mr.  Triibner  and  I  were 
only  a  pair  of  foreign  rogues,  bound  together  to  wrong  Mr. 
J.  C.  Hotten  out  of  his  higher  rights  in  "  Breitmann."  I 
wrote  a  pamphlet  in  which  I  said  this  and  some  other  things 
very  plainly.  Mr.  Triibner  showed  this  to  his  lawyer,  who 
was  of  the  opinion  that  it  could  not  be  published  because  it 
bore  on  libel,  though  there  was  nothing  in  it  worse  than  what 
I  have  here  said.  However,  Mr.  Triibner  had  it  privately 
printed,  and  took  great  joy,  solace,  and  comfort  for  a  very 
long  time  in  reading  it  to  his  friends  after  dinner,  or  on 
other  occasions,  and  as  he  had  many,  it  got  pretty  well  about 
London.  I  may  here  very  truly  remark  that  Mr.  Hotten,  in 
the  public  controversy  which  he  had  with  Mr.  Triibner  on 
the  subject  of  my  "  Ballads,"  displayed  an  effrontery  ab 
solutely  without  parallel  in  modern  times,  apropos  of  which 
Punch  remarked — 

"  The  name  of  Curll  will  never  be  forgotten, 
And  neither  will  be  thine,  John  Camden  Hotten." 

From  Spa  we  went  to  Brussels,  where  I  remember  to  have 
seen  many  times  at  work  in  the  gallery  the  famous  artist 


376  MEMOIRS. 

without  arms  who  painted  with  his  toes.  What  was  quite  as 
remarkable  was  the  excellence  of  his  copies  from  Rembrandt. 
Nature  succeeded  in  his  case  in  "  heaping  voonders  oopen 
voonders,"  as  Tom  Hood  says  in  his  "  Rhine."  I  became 
well  acquainted  with  Tom  Hood  the  younger  in  after  years, 
and  to  this  day  I  contribute  something  every  year  to  Tom 
Hood's  Annual.  At  Brussels  we  stayed  at  a  charming  old 
hotel  which  had  galleries  one  above  the  other  round  the 
courtyard,  exactly  like  those  of  the  White  Hart  Inn  immor 
talised  in  "  Pickwick."  There  was  in  Philadelphia  a  perfect 
specimen  of  such  an  inn,  which  has  of  late  years  been  rebuilt 
as  the  Bingham  House.  While  in  Spa  I  studied  Walloon. 

From  Brussels  to  Ghent,  which  I  found  much  modern 
ised  from  what  it  had  been  in  1847,  when  it  was  still  exactly 
as  in  the  Middle  Age,  but  fearfully  decayed,  and,  like  Fer- 
rara,  literary  with  grass-grown  streets.  Und  noch  welter — 
to  Ostend,  where  for  three  weeks  I  took  lessons  in  Flemish  or 
Dutch  from  a  young  professor,  reading  "  Vondel "  and 
"  Bilderdijk,"  who,  if  not  in  the  world  of  letters  known,  de 
serves  to  be.  I  had  no  dictionary  all  this  time,  and  the 
teacher  marvelled  that  I  always  knew  the  meaning  of  the 
words,  which  will  not  seem  marvellous  to  any  one  who  under 
stands  German  and  has  studied  Anglo-Saxon  and  read 
"  Middle  or  Early  English."  Then  back  to  Spa  to  meet  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Triibner  and  her  father  Octave  Delepierre,  who 
was  a  great  scholar  in  rariora,  curiosa,  and  old  French,  and 
facile  princeps  the  greatest  expert  in  Macaronic  poetry  who 
ever  wrote.  May  I  here  venture  to  mention  that  he  always 
declared  that  my  later  poem  of  "  Breitmann  and  the  Pope  " 
was  the  best  Macaronic  poem  which  he  had  ever  read  ?  His 
reason  for  this  was  that  it  was  the  most  reckless  and  heedless 
or  extravagant  combination  of  Latin  and  modern  languages 
known  to  him.  I  had,  however,  been  much  indebted  to  Mr. 
Oscar  Browning  for  revising  it.  And  so  the  truth,  which 
long  in  darkness  lay,  now  comes  full  clearly  to  the  light  of 
day. 


EUROPE  REVISITED.  377 

Thence  to  Liege,  Amsterdam,  the  Hague,  Haarlem,  and 
Leyden,  visiting  all  the  great  galleries  and  many  private  col 
lections.  At  Amsterdam  we  saw  the  last  grand  kermess  or 
annual  fair  ever  held  there.  It  was  a  Dutch  carnival,  so 
wild  and  extravagant  that  few  can  comprehend  now  to  what 
extremes  "  spreeing  "  can  be  carried.  The  Dutch,  like  the 
Swedes,  have  or  had  the  strange  habit  of  bottling  up  their 
hilarity  and  letting  it  out  on  stated  occasions  in  uproarious 
frolics.  I  saw  carmagnoles  in  which  men  and  women,  seized 
by  a  wild  impulse,  whirled  along  the  street  in  a  frantic  dance 
to  any  chance  music,  compelling  every  bystander  to  join.  I 
heard  of  a  Prince  from  Capua,  who,  having  been  thus  car- 
magnoled,  returned  home  in  rags. 

In  Leyden  I  visited  the  Archaeological  Museum,  where  I 
by  chance  became  acquainted  with  the  chief  or  director,  who 
was  then  engaged  in  rearranging  his  collections,  and  who, 
without  knowing  my  name,  kindly  expressed  the  wish  that  I 
would  remain  a  week  to  aid  him  in  preparing  the  catalogue. 
As  there  are  few  works  on  prehistoric  relics  which  I  do  not 
know,  and  as  I  had  for  many  years  studied  with  zeal  innu 
merable  collections  of  the  kind,  I  venture  to  believe  that  his 
faith  in  my  knowledge  was  not  quite  misplaced.  Even  as  I 
write  I  have  just  received  the  Catalogue  of  Prehistoric 
Works  in  Eastern  America,  by  Cyrus  Thomas — a  work  of 
very  great  importance. 

Thence  we  went  to  Cologne,  where  it  was  marvellous  to 
find  the  Cathedral  completed,  in  spite  of  the  ancient  legend 
which  asserts  that  though  the  devil  had  furnished  its  design 
he  had  laid  a  curse  upon  it,  declaring  that  it  should  never 
be  finished.  Thence  up  the  Rhine  by  castles  grey  and  smil 
ing  towns,  recalling  my  old  foot-journey  along  its  banks ; 
and  so  on  to  Heidelberg,  where  I  stayed  a  month  at  the 
Black  Eagle.  Ilerr  Lehr  was  still  there.  He  had  grown 
older.  His  son  was  taking  dancing  lessons  of  Herr  Zimmer, 
Avho  had  taught  me  to  waltz  twenty  years  before.  One  day 
I  took  my  watch  to  a  shop  to  be  repaired,  when  the  proprie- 


378  MEMOIRS. 

tor  declared  that  lie  had  mended  it  ouce  before  in  1847,  and 
showed  me  the  private  mark  which  he  put  on  it  at  the  time. 

There  were  several  American  students,  who  received  me 
very  kindly.  I  remember  among  them  Wright,  Manly,  and 
Overton.  When  I  sat  among  them  smoking  and  drinking 
beer,  and  mingling  German  student  words  with  English,  it 
seemed  as  if  the  past  twenty  years  were  all  a  dream,  and  that 
I  was  a  Burscli  again.  Overton  had  the  reputation  of  being 
par  eminence  the  man  of  men  in  all  Heidelberg,  who  could 
take  off  a  full  quart  at  one  pull  without  stopping  to  take 
breath — a  feat  which  I  had  far  outdone  at  Munich,  in  my 
youth,  with  the  7wrn,  and  which  I  again  accomplished  at 
Heidelberg  "  without  the  foam,"  Overton  himself,  who  was  a 
very  noble  young  fellow,  applauding  the  feat  most  loudly. 
But  I  have  since  then  often  done  it  with  Bass  or  Alsopp, 
which  is  much  harder.  I  need  not  say  that  the  "  Breitmann 
Ballads,"  which  had  recently  got  among  the  Anglo-American 
students,  and  were  by  them  greatly  admired,  did  much  to 
render  me  popular. 

I  found  or  made  many  friends  in  Heidelberg.  One 
night  we  were  invited  to  a  supper,  and  learned  afterwards 
that  the  two  children  of  our  host,  having  heard  that  we  were 
Americans,  had  peeped  at  us  through  the  keyhole  and  ex 
pressed  great  disappointment  at  not  finding  us  black. 

In  November  we  went  to  Dresden.  We  were  so  fortunate 
as  to  obtain  excellent  rooms  and  board  with  a  Herr  and 
Madame  Kohn,  a  well-to-do  couple,  who,  I  am  sure,  took 
boarders  far  more  for  the  sake  of  company  than  for  gain. 
Herr  Rohn  had  graduated  at  Leipzig,  but  having  spent  most 
of  his  life  in  Vienna,  was  a  man  of  exuberant  jollity — a  man 
of  gold  and  a  gentleman,  even  as  his  wife  was  a  truly  gentle 
lady.  As  I  am  very  tall,  and  detest  German  small  beds,  I 
complained  of  mine,  and  Herr  Eohn  said  he  had  another,  of 
which  I  could  not  complain.  And  I  certainly  could  not,  for 
when  it  came  I  found  it  was  at  least  eight  feet  in  length.  It 
seems  that  they  had  once  had  for  a  boarder  a  German  baron 


EUROPE   REVISITED.  379 

who  was  more  than  seven  feet  high,  and  had  had  this  curiosity 
constructed ;  and  Herr  Rohn  roared  with  laughter  as  I  gazed 
on  it,  and  asked  if  I  would  have  it  lengthened. 

AVe  remained  in  Dresden  till  February,  and  found  many 
friends,  among  whom  there  was  much  pleasant  homelike 
hospitality.  Among  others  were  Julian  Hawthorne  and  sis 
ters,  and  George  Parsons  Lathrop.  They  were  young  fellows 
then,  and  not  so  well  known  as  they  have  since  become,  but 
it  was  evident  enough  that  they  had  good  work  in  them. 
They  often  came  to  see  me,  and  were  very  kind  in  many 
ways.  I  took  lessons  in  porcelain-painting,  which  art  I  kept 
up  for  many  years,  and  was,  of  course,  assiduous  in  visiting 
the  galleries,  Green  Vault,  and  all  works  of  art.  I  became 
well  acquainted  with  Passavant,  the  director.  I  was  getting 
better,  but  was  still  far  from  being  as  mentally  vigorous  as  I 
had  been.  I  now  attribute  this  to  the  enormous  daily  dose 
of  bromide  which  I  continued  to  take,  probably  mistaking 
its  influence  for  the  original  nervous  exhaustion  itself.  It  was 
not  indeed  till  I  got  to  England,  and  substituted  lupuUn  in 
the  form  of  hops — that  is  to  say,  pale  ale  or  "  bitter  "  — in 
generous  doses,  that  I  quite  recovered. 

So  we  passed  on  to  Prague,  which  city,  like  everything 
Czech,  always  had  a  strange  fascination  for  me.  There  I 
met  a  certain  Mr.  Vojtech  Xapristek  (or  Adalbert  Thimble), 
who  had  once  edited  in  the  United  States  a  Bohemian  news 
paper  with  which  I  had  exchanged,  and  with  whom  I  had 
corresponded,  but  whom  I  had  never  before  seen.  He  had 
established  in  Prague,  on  American  lines,  a  Ladies'  Club  of 
two  hundred,  which  we  visited,  and  was,  I  believe,  owing  to 
an  inheritance,  now  a  prosperous  man.  Though  I  am  not  a 
Thimble,  it  also  befell  me,  in  later  years,  to  found  and  pre 
side  over  a  Ladies'  Art  Club  of  two  hundred  souls.  At  that 
time  the  famous  legendary  bridge,  with  the  ancient  statue 
of  St.  John  Nepomuk,  still  existed  as  of  yore.  No  one  im 
agined  that  a  time  would  come  when  they  would  be  washed 
away  through  sheer  neglect. 


380  MEMOIRS. 

So  on  to  Munich,  where,  during  a  whole  week,  I  saw  but 
one  Riegelhaube,  a  curious  head-dress  or  chignon-cover  of 
silver  thread,  once  very  common.  Even  the  old  Bavarian  dia 
lect  seemed  to  have  almost  vanished,  and  I  was  glad  to  hear  it 
from  our  porter.  Many  old  landmarks  still  existed,  but  King 
Louis  no  longer  ran  about  the  streets — I  nearly  ran  against 
him  once ;  people  no  longer  were  obliged  by  law  to  remove 
cigars  or  pipes  from  their  mouths  when  passing  a  sentry-box. 
Lola  Montez  had  vanished.  Mais  oil  sont  Us  neiges  cTantan  ? 

So  we  went  over  the  Brenner  Pass,  stopped  at  Innspruck, 
and  saw  the  church  described  by  Heine  in  his  Reiscbildcr, 
and  came  to  Verona,  the  Bern  of  the  Helderibuch.  "  Ich  will 
gen  Bern  ausreiten,  spracli  Meister  Hildebrand" 

It  was  a  happy  thought  of  the  Italians  to  put  picturesque 
Verona  down  as  the  first  stopping-place  for  Northern  travel 
lers,  and  I  rather  like  Raskin's  idea  of  buying  the  town  and 
keeping  it  intact  as  a  piece  of  bric-a-brac.  He  might  have 
proposed  Rome  while  he  was  about  it;  "  anything  there  can 
be  had  for  money,"  says  Juvenal. 

When  we  arrived  at  the  station  I  alone  was  left  to  en 
counter  the  fierce  douaniers.  One  of  them,  inquisitive  as  to 
tobacco,  when  I  told  him  I  had  none,  laid  his  finger  impres 
sively  on  the  mouthpiece  of  my  pipe,  remarking  that  where 
the  tail  of  the  fox  was  seen  the  fox  could  not  be  far  off.  To 
which  I  replied  that  I  indeed  had  no  tobacco,  but  wanted 
some  very  badly,  and  that  I  would  be  much  obliged  to  him  if 
he  would  give  me  a  little  to  fill  my  pipe.  So  all  laughed. 
My  wife  entering  at  this  instant,  cried  in  amazement,  "  Why, 
Charles !  where  did  you  ever  learn  to  talk  Italian  ?  "  Which 
shows  that  there  can  be  secrets  even  between  married  people ; 
though  indeed  my  Italian  has  always  been  of  such  inferior 
quality  that  it  is  no  wonder  that  I  never  boasted  of  it  even  in 
confidence.  It  is,  in  fact,  the  Iland-organo  dialect  flavoured 
with  Florentine. 

There  was  an  old  lady  who  stood  at  the  door  of  a  curiosity- 
shop  in  Verona,  and  she  had  five  pieces  of  bone-carvings 


EUROPE  REVISITED.  381 

from  some  old  scatola  or  marriage-casket.  She  asked  a 
fabulous  price  for  them,  and  I  offered  five  francs.  She 
scorned  the  paltry  sum  with  all  the  vehemence  of  a  suscep 
tible  soul  whose  tenderest  feelings  have  been  outraged.  So 
I  went  my  way,  but  as  I  passed  the  place  returning,  the  old 
lady  came  forth,  and,  graciously  courtesying  and  smiling, 
held  forth  to  me  the  earrings  neatly  wrapped  in  paper,  and 
thanked  me  for  the  five  francs !  Which  indicated  to  me 
that  the  good  small  folk  of  Italy  had  not  materially  changed 
since  I  had  left  the  country. 

We  came  to  Venice,  and  went  to  a  hotel,  where  we  had 
a  room  given  to  us  which,  had  we  wished  to  give  a  ball,  would 
have  left  nothing  to  be  desired.  I  counted  in  it  twenty-seven 
chairs  and  seven  tables,  all  at  such  a  distance  from  one  an 
other  that  they  seemed  not  to  be  on  speaking  terms.  I  do 
not  think  I  ever  got  quite  so  far  as  the  upper  end  of  that 
room  while  I  inhabited  it — it  was  probably  somewhere  in 
Austria.  I  have  spoken  of  having  met  Mr.  Wright  at  Heidel 
berg.  He  was  from  Wilkesbarre,  Pennsylvania.  The  next 
day  after  my  arrival  I  found  among  the  names  of  the  depart 
ed,  "  Signore  Wright- Iiilkes,  from  Barre,  Pennsylvania, 
America."  This  reminded  me  of  the  Anglo-American  who 
was  astonished  at  Eome  at  receiving  invitations  and  circulars 
addressed  to  him  as  "  Illustrissimo  Varanti  Solezer."  It 
turned  out  that  an  assistant,  reading  aloud  to  the  clerk  the 
names  from  the  trunks,  had  mistaken  a  very  large  "  WAR 
RANTED  SOLE  LEATHER  "  for  the  name  of  the  owner. 

And  this  on  soles  reminds  me  that  there  was  a,femme  sole 
or  lone  acrimonious  British  female  at  our  hotel,  who  declared 
to  me  one  evening  that  she  had  never  in  all  her  life  been  so 
insulted  as  she  was  that  day  at  a  banker's ;  and  the  insult 
consisted  in  this,  that  she,  although  quite  unknown  to  him, 
had  asked  him  to  cash  a  cheque  on  London,  which  he  had 
declined  to  do.  I  remarked  that  no  banker  who  did  business 
properly  ever  ought  to  cash  a  cheque  from  a  total  stranger. 

"  Sir,"  said  the  lady,  "  do  /  look  like  an  impostor?  " 


382  MEMOIRS. 

"  Madame,"  I  replied,  "  I  have  seen  thieves  and  wretches 
of  the  vilest  type  who  could  not  have  been  distinguished 
from  either  of  us  as  regards  respectability  of  appearance. 
You  do  not  appear  to  know  much  about  such  people." 

"  I  am  happy  to  say,  sir,"  replied  the  lady  with  intense 
acidity,  "  that  /  do  not."  But  she  added  triumphantly, 
"  What  do  you  say  when  I  tell  you  that  I  had  my  cheque-book  9 
How  could  I  have  possessed  it  if  I  had  not  a  right  to  draw?  " 

"  Any  scamp,"  I  replied,  "  can  deposit  a  few  pounds  in  a 
bank,  buy  a  cheque-book,  and  then  draw  his  money." 

But  the  next  day  she  came  to  me  in  radiant  sneering 
triumph.  She  had  found  another  banker,  who  was  a  gentle 
man,  with  a  marked  emphasis,  who  had  cashed  her  cheque. 
How  many  people  there  are  in  this  world  whose  definition  of 
a  gentleman  is  "  one  who  does  whatever  pleases  us  !  " 

In  Florence  we  went  directly  to  the  Hotel  d'Europe  in 
the  Via  Tuornabuoni,  where  my  Indian  blanket  vanished 
even  while  entering  the  hotel,  and  surrounded  only  by  the 
servants  to  whom  the  luggage  had  been  confided.  As  the 
landlord  manifested  great  disgust  for  me  whenever  I  men 
tioned  such  a  trifle,  and  as  the  porter  and  the  rest  declared 
that  they  Avould  answer  soul  and  body  for  one  another's  hon 
esty,  I  had  to  grin  and  bear  it.  I  really  wonder  sometimes 
that  there  are  not  more  boarders,  who,  like  Benvenuto  Cel 
lini,  set  fire  to  hotels  or  cut  up  the  bedclothes  before  leaving 
them.  That  worthy,  having  been  treated  not  so  badly  as  I 
was  at  the  Hotel  d'Europe  and  at  another  in  Florence,  cut  to 
pieces  the  sheets  of  his  bed,  galloped  away  hastily,  and  from 
the  summit  of  a  distant  hill  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  the 
landlord  in  a  rage.  Now  people  write  to  the  Times,  and 
"  cut  up "  the  whole  concern.  It  all  comes  to  the  same 
thing. 

In  Florence  I  saw  much  of  an  old  Xew  York  friend,  the 
now  late  Lorimer  Graham.  When  he  died,  Swinburne  wrote 
a  poem  on  him.  He  was  a  man  of  great  culture  and  refined 
manner.  There  was  something  sympathetic  in  him  which 


EUROPE  REVISITED.  353 

drew  every  one  irresistibly  into  liking.  It  was  his  instinct  to 
be  kind  and  thoughtful  to  every  one.  He  gave  me  letters  to 
Swinburne,  Lord  Houghton,  and  others. 

I  made  an  acquaintance  by  chance  in  Florence  whom  I 
can  never  forget :  for  he  was  a  character.  One  day  while  in 
the  Uffizi  Gallery  engaged  in  studying  the  great  Etruscan 
vase,  now  in  the  Etruscan  Museum,  a  stranger  standing  by 
me  said,  "  Does  not  this  seem  to  you  like  a  mysterious  book 
written  in  forgotten  characters  ?  Is  not  a  collection  of  such 
vases  like  a  library  ?  " 

"  On  that  hint  I  spake."  "  I  see,"  I  replied,  "you  refer 
to  the  so-called  Etruscan  Library  which  an  Englishman  has 
made,  and  which  contains  only  vases  and  inscriptions  in  that 
now  unknown  tongue  of  Etruria.  And  indeed,  when  we 
turn  over  the  pages  of  Inghirami,  Gherard,  and  Gori,  Gray, 
or  Dennis,  it  does  indeed  really  seem —  But  what  do  you 
really  think  the  old  Etruscan  language  truly  was  ?  " 

"  Look  here,  my  friend,"  cried  the  stranger  in  broad 
Yankee,  "  I  guess  I'm  barkin'  up  the  wrong  tree.  I  calcu 
lated  to  tell  you  something,  but  you're  ahead  of  me." 

"WTe  both  laughed  and  became  very  good  friends.  He 
lived  at  our  hotel,  and  had  been  twenty-five  years  in  Italy, 
and  knew  every  custode  in  every  gallery,  and  could  have 
every  secret  treasure  unlocked.  He  was  perfectly  at  home 
about  town — would  stop  and  ask  a  direction  of  a  cab-driver, 
and  was  capable  of  going  into  an  umbrella-shop  when  it 
rained. 

"We  went  on  to  Eome,  and  I  can  only  say  that  as  regards 
what  we  saw  there,  my  memory  is  confused  literally  with  an 
embarras  de  richesses.  The  Ecumenical  Council  was  being 
held,  at  which  an  elderly  Italian  gentleman,  who  possibly  did 
not  know  oxygen  from  hydrogen,  or  sin  from  sugar,  was  de 
clared  to  be  infallible  in  his  judgment  of  all  earthly  things. 

While  in  Rome  we  saw  a  great  deal  of  W.  W.  Story,  the 
sculptor,  and  his  wife  and  daughter,  Edith,  for  whom 
Thackeray  wrote  his  most  beautiful  tale,  and  I  at  my  humble 


384:  MEMOIRS. 

distance  the  ballad  of  "  Breitmann  in  Rome,"  which  con 
tained  a  remarkable  prophecy,  of  the  Franco-German  Avar. 
At  their  house  we  met  Odo  Russell  and  Oscar  Browning,  and 
many  more  whose  names  are  known  to  all.  It  was  there  also 
that  a  lady  of  the  Royal  English  household  amused  us  very 
much  one  evening  by  narrating  how  the  "  Breitmann  Bal 
lads,"  owing  to  their  odd  mixture  of  German  and  English, 
were  favourite  subjects  for  mutual  reading  and  recitation 
among  the  then  youthful  members  of  the  Royal  family,  and 
what  haste  and  alarm  there  was  to  put  the  forbidden  book 
out  of  the  way  when  Her  Majesty  the  Queen  was  announced 
as  coming.  I  also  met  in  Rome  the  American  poet  and 
painter  T.  Buchanan  Read,  who  gave  me  a  dinner,  and  very 
often  that  remarkable  character  General  Carroll  Tevis,  who, 
having  fought  under  most  flags,  and  been  a  Turkish  bey  or 
pacha,  was  now  a  chamberlain  of  the  Pope.  In  the  following 
year  he  fought  for  the  French,  behaved  with  great  bravery 
in  Bourbaki's  retreat,  and  was  decorated  on  the  field  of  bat 
tle.  Then  again,  when  I  was  in  Egypt,  Tevis  was  at  the 
head  of  the  military  college.  He  had  fairly  won  his  rank  of 
general  in  the  American  Civil  War,  but  as  there  was  some 
disinclination  or  other  to  give  it  to  him,  I  had  used  my  in 
fluence  in  his  favour  with  Forney,  who  speedily  secured  it 
for  him.  He  was  a  perfect  type  of  the  old  condottiero, 
but  with  Dugald  Dalgetty's  scrupulous  faith  to  his  mili 
tary  engagements.  The  American  clergyman  in  Rome  was 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Nevin,  a  brother  of  my  friend  Captain  Kevin. 
There  was  also  Mrs.  John  Grigg,  an  old  Philadelphia  friend 
(now  residing  in  Florence),  to  whom  we  were  then,  as  we 
have  continually  been  since,  indebted  for  the  most  cordial 
hospitality. 

Through  the  kind  aid  of  General  Tevis  we  were  enabled 
to  see  all  the  principal  ceremonies  of  the  Holy  Week  and 
Easter.  This  year,  owing  to  the  Council,  everything  was  on 
a  scale  of  unusual  magnificence.  I  can  say  with  Panurge  that 
I  have  seen  three  Popes,  but  will  not  add  with  him,  "  and 


EUROPE  REVISITED.  335 

little  good  did  it  ever  do  me,"  for  Mrs.  Leland  at  least  was 
much  gratified  with  a  full  sight  and  quasi-interview  with  His 
Holiness. 

There  was  a  joyous  sight  for  a  cynic  to  be  seen  in  Rome 
in  those  days — in  fact,  it  was  only  last  year  (1891)  that  it 
was  done  away  with.  This  was  the  drawing  of  the  lottery  by 
a  priest.  There  was  on  a  holy  platform  a  holy  wheel  and  a 
holy  little  boy  to  draw  the  holy  numbers,  and  a  holy  old 
priest  to  oversee  and  bless  the  whole  precious  business.  The 
blessing  of  the  devil  would  have  been  more  appropriate,  for 
the  lotteries  are  the  curse  of  Italy.  What  the  Anglo-Ameri 
can  mechanic  puts  into  a  savings  bank,  the  Italian  invests 
in  lotteries.  In  Naples  there  are  now  fourteen  tickets  sold 
per  annum  for  the  gross  amount  of  the  population,  and  in 
Florence  twelve. 

One  day  I  took  a  walk  out  into  the  country  with  Briton 
Riviere  and  some  other  artists.  I  had  a  cake  or  two  of 
colour,  and  Riviere,  with  wine  for  water,  at  a  trattoria  where 
we  lunched,  made  a  picture  of  the  attendant  maid.  He 
pointed  out  to  me  on  the  road  a  string  of  peasants  carrying 
great  loaves  of  coarse  bread.  They  had  walked  perhaps 
twenty  miles  to  buy  it,  because  in  those  days  people  were  not 
allowed  to  bake  their  own  bread,  but  must  buy  it  at  the 
public  forno,  which  paid  a  tax  for  the  privilege.  So  long  as 
Rome  was  under  Papal  control,  its  every  municipal  institu 
tion,  such  as  hospitals,  prisons,  and  the  police,  were  in  a 
state  of  absolutely  incredible  inhuman  vileness,  while  under 
everything  ran  corruption  and  dishonesty.  The  lower  or 
ders  were  severely  disciplined  as  to  their  sexual  morals,  be 
cause  it  was  made  a  rich  source  of  infamous  taxes,  as  it  now 
is  in  other  cities  of  Europe ;  but  cardinals  and  the  wealthier 
priests  kept  mistresses,  almost  openly,  since  these  women 
were  pointed  out  to  every  one  as  they  flaunted  about  proudly 
in  their  carriages. 

From  Rome  we  passed  into  Pisa,  Genoa,  Spezzia,  and 
Xice,  over  the  old  Cornici  road,  and  so  again  to  Paris,  where 


386  '  MEMOIRS. 

we  remained  six  weeks,  and  then  left  in  June,  1870,  just  be 
fore  the  war  broke  out.  While  in  the  city  we  saw  at  differ 
ent  times  in  public  the  Emperor  and  Empress,  also  the 
Queen  of  Spain.  The  face  of  Louis  Napoleon  was  indeed 
somewhat  changed  since  I  saw  him  in  London  in  1848,  but 
it  had  not  improved  so  much  as  his  circumstances,  as  he  was 
according  to  external  appearances  and  popular  belief  now 
extremely  well  off.  But  appearances  are  deceptive,  as  was 
soon  proved,  for  he  was  in  reality  on  the  verge  of  a  worse 
bankruptcy  than  even  his  uncle  underwent,  for  the  nephew 
lost  not  only  kingdom  and  life,  but  also  every  trace  of  repu 
tation  for  wisdom  and  honesty,  remaining  to  history  only  as 
a  brazen  royal  adventurer  and  "  copper  captain." 

In  Eome  our  dear  old  friend  Mrs.  John  Grigg  showed  us, 
as  I  said,  many  kind  attentions,  which  she  has,  in  Florence, 
continued  to  this  day.  This  lady  is  own  aunt  to  my  old 
school  friend  General  George  B.  McClellan.  At  an  advanced 
age  she  executes  without  glasses  the  most  exquisite  em 
broidery  conceivable,  and  her  heart  and  intellect  are  in  keep 
ing  with  her  sight. 


VIII. 
ENGLAND. 

1870. 

The  Triibners — George  Eliot  and  G.  H.  Lewes — Heseltine — Edwards — 
Etched  by  Bracquemond  and  Legros — Jean  Ingelow — Tennyson — 
Ilepworth  Dixon — Lord  Lytton  the  elder — Lord  Houghton — Bret 
Harte — France,  Alsace,  and  Lorraine — Samuel  Laing — Gypsies — 
The  Misses  Horace  Smith — Brighton  and  odd  fish — Work  and 
books  —  Hunting — Dore  —  Art  and  Nature — Taglioni — Chevalier 
Wykoff — Octave  Delepierre — Breitmann — Thomas  Carlyle — George 
Borrow — A  cathedral  tour  round  about  England — Salisbury,  Wells, 
and  York. 

IT  is  pleasant  being  anywhere  in  England  in  June,  and 
the  passing  from  picturesque  Dover  to  London  through 
laughing  Kent  is  a  good  introduction  to  the  country.  The 
untravelled  American,  fresh  from  the  "  boundless  prairies " 
and  twenty-thousand-acre  fields  of  wheat,  sees  nothing  in  it 
all  but  the  close  cultivation  of  limited  land ;  but  the  tourist 
from  the  Continent  perceives  at  once  that,  with  most  careful 
agriculture,  there  are  indications  of  an  exuberance  of  wealth, 
true  comfort,  and  taste  rarely  seen  in  France  or  Germany. 
The  many  trees  of  a  better  quality  and  slower  growth  than 
the  weedy  sprouting  poplar  and  willow  of  Normandy ;  the 
hedges,  which  are  very  beautiful  and  ever  green ;  the  flower 
beds  and  walks  about  the  poorest  cottage ;  the  neatly  planted, 
prettily  bridged  side  roads,  all  indicate  a  superiority  of  wealth 
or  refinement  such  as  prevails  only  in  New  England,  or  rather 
which  did  prevail,  until  the  native  population,  going  west 
ward,  was  supplanted  by  Irish  or  worse,  if  any  worse  there  be 
at  turning  neatness  into  dirty  disorder. 


388  MEMOIRS. 

That  older  American  population  was  deeply  English,  with 
a  thousand  rural  English  traditions  religiously  preserved ; 
and  the  chief  of  these  is  clean  neatness,  which,  when  fully 
carried  out,  always  results  in  simple,  unaffected  beauty.  This 
was  very  strongly  shown  in  the  Quaker  gardens,  once  so  com 
mon  in  Philadelphia — and  in  the  people. 

We  arrived  in  London,  and  went  directly  to  the  Triibners', 
No.  29  Upper  Hamilton  Terrace,  N.  W.  The  first  person 
who  welcomed  me  was  Mr.  Delepierrc,  an  idol  of  mine  for 
years ;  and  the  first  thing  I  did  was  to  borrow  half-a-crown  of 
him  to  pay  the  cab,  having  only  French  money  with  me.  It 
was  a  charming  house,  with  a  large  garden,  so  redolent  of 
roses  that  it  might  have  served  Chriemhilda  of  old  for  a 
romance.  For  twenty  years  that  house  was  destined  to  be  an 
occasional  home  and  a  dwelling  where  we  were  ever  welcome, 
and  where  every  Sunday  evening  I  had  always  an  appointed 
place  at  dinner,  and  a  special  arm-chair  for  the  never-failing 
Havannah.  Mrs.  Triibner  had,  in  later  years,  two  boxes  of 
Havannahs  of  the  best,  which  had  belonged  to  G.  II.  Lewes, 
and  which  George  Eliot  gave  her  after  his  death.  I  have  kept 
two  en  souvenir.  I  knew  a  man  once  who  had  formed  a  large 
collection  of  such  relics.  There  was  a  cigar  which  he  had 
received  from  Louis  Napoleon,  and  one  from  Bismarck,  and 
so  forth.  But,  alas !  once  while  away  on  his  travels,  the  whole 
museum  was  smoked  up  by  a  reckless  under-graduate  younger 
brother.  In  fumo  exit. 

How  many  people  well  known  to  the  world — or  rather  how 
few  who  were  not — have  I  met  there — Edwin  Arnold,  G.  H. 
Lewes,  Mrs.  Triibner's  uncle  H.  Dixon,  M.  Van  der  Weyer, 
Frith  the  artist,  Lord  Napier  of  Magdala,  Pigott,  Norman 
Lockyer,  Bret  Harte,  "  and  full  many  more,"  scholars,  poets, 
editors,  and,  withal,  lady  writers  of  every  good  shade,  grade, 
and  quality.  How  many  of  them  all  have  passed  since  then 
full  silently  into  the  Silent  Land,  where  we  may  follow,  but 
return  no  more !  How  many  a  pleasant  smile  and  friendly 
voice  and  firm  alliances  and  genial  acquaintances,  often  carried 


ENGLAND.  339 

out  in  other  lands,  date  their  beginning  in  my  memory  to  the 
house  in  Hamilton  Terrace  !  How  often  have  I  heard  by  land 
or  sea  the  familiar  greeting,  "  I  think  I  met  you  once  at  the 
Triibners' !  "  For  it  was  a  salon,  a  centre  or  sun  with  many 
bright  and  cheering  rays — a  civilising  institution  ! 

Mrs.  Triibner  was  the  life  of  this  home.  Anglo-Belgian 
by  early  relation  and  education,  she  combined  four  types  in 
one.  When  speaking  English,  she  struck  me  as  the  type  of 
an  accomplished  and  refined  British  matron ;  in  French,  her 
whole  nature  seemed  Parisienne ;  in  Flemish,  she  was  alto 
gether  Flamande;  and  in  German,  Deutsch.  If  Cerberus 
was  three  gentlemen  in  one,  Mrs.  Triibner  was  four  ladies 
united.  Very  well  read,  she  conversed  not  only  well  on  any 
subject,  but,  what  is  very  unusual  in  her  sex,  with  sincere 
interest,  and  not  merely  to  entertain.  If  interrupted  in  a 
conversation  she  resumed  the  subject !  This  is  a  remarkable 
trait ! 

The  next  day  after  our  arrival  Mrs.  Triibner  took  Mrs. 
Leland,  during  a  walk,  to  call  on  George  Eliot,  and  that  even 
ing  G.  H.  Lewes,  Hepworth  Dixon,  and  some  others  came  to 
a  reception  at  the  Triibners'.  Both  of  these  men  were,  as 
ever,  very  brilliant  and  amusing  in  conversation.  I  met  them 
very  often  after  this,  both  at  their  homes  and  about  London. 
I  also  became  acquainted  with  George  Eliot  or  Mrs.  Lewes, 
who  left  on  me  the  marked  impression,  which  she  did  on  all, 
of  being  a  woman  of  genius,  though  I  cannot  recall  anything 
remarkable  which  I  ever  heard  from  her.  I  note  this  because 
there  were  most  extraordinary  reports  of  her  utterances  among 
her  admirers.  A  young  American  lady  once  seriously  asked 
me  if  it  were  true  that  at  the  Sunday  afternoon  receptions  in 
South  Bank  one  could  always  see  rows  of  twenty  or  thirty  of 
the  greatest  men  in  England,  such  as  Carlyle,  Froude,  and 
Herbert  Spencer,  all  sitting  with  their  note-books  silently 
taking  down  from  her  lips  the  ideas  which  they  subsequently 
used  in  their  writings !  There  seemed,  indeed,  to  be  afloat  in 
America  among  certain  folk  an  idea  that  something  enormous, 


390  MEMOIRS. 

marvellous,  and  inspired  went  on  at  these  receptions,  and  that 
George  Eliot  posed  as  a  Pythia  or  Sibyl,  as  the  great  leading 
mind  of  England,  and  lectured  while  we  listened.  There  is 
no  good  portrait,  I  believe,  of  her.  She  had  long  features, 
and  would  have  been  called  plain  but  for  her  solemn,  earnest 
eyes,  which  had  an  expression  quite  in  keeping  with  her  voice, 
which  was  one  not  easily  forgotten.  I  never  detected  in  her 
any  trace  of  genial  humour,  though  I  doubt  not  that  it  was 
latent  in  her ;  and  I  thought  her  a  person  who  had  drawn  her 
ideas  far  more  from  books  and  an  acquaintance  with  certain 
types  of  humanity  whom  she  had  set  herself  deliberately  to 
study — albeit  with  rare  perception — than  from  an  easy  intui 
tive  familiarity  with  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men.  But 
she  worked  out  thoroughly  what  she  knew  by  the  intuition  of 
genius,  though  in  this  she  was  very  far  inferior  to  Scott. 
Thus  she  wrote  the  "  Spanish  Gypsy,"  having  only  seen  such 
gypsies  two  or  three  times.  One  day  she  told  me  that  in  order 
to  write  "  Daniel  Deronda,"  she  had  read  through  two  hun 
dred  books.  I  longed  to  tell  her  that  she  had  better  have 
learned  Yiddish  and  talked  with  two  hundred  Jews,  and  been 
taught,  as  I  was  by  my  friend  Solomon  the  Sadducee,  the  art 
of  distinguishing  Eraulein  Lowenthal  of  the  Ashkenazim 
from  Senorita  Aguado  of  the  Sephardim  by  the  corners  of 
their  eyes  ! 

I  had  read  inpre  than  once  Lewes's  "  Life  of  Goethe,"  his 
"  History  of  Philosophy  and  Physiology,"  and  even  "  written 
him"  for  the  Cyclopedia.  With  him  I  naturally  at  once 
became  well  acquainted.  I  remember  here  that  Mr.  Eipley 
had  once  reproved  me  for  declaring  that  Lewes  had  really  a 
claim  to  be  an  original  philosopher  or  thinker ;  for  Boston 
intellect  always  frowned  on  him  after  Margaret  Fuller  con 
demned  him  as  "  frivolous  and  atheistic."  I  remember  that 
Tom  Powell  had  told  me  how  he  had  dined  somewhere  in 
London,  where  there  was  a  man  present  who  had  really  been 
a  cannibal,  owing  to  dire  stress  of  shipwreck,  and  how  Lewes, 
who  was  there,  was  so  fascinated  with  the  man-eater  that  he 


ENGLAND. 

could  think  of  nothing  else.  Lewes  told  me  that  once,  having 
gone  with  a  party  of  archasologists  to  visit  a  ruined  church, 
he  found  on  a  twelfth-century  tombstone  some  illegible  let 
ters  which  he  persuaded  the  others  to  believe  formed  the 
name  (SuUaj&i,  probably  having  in  mind  the  poems  of  Walter 
de  Mapes.  When  I  returned  from  Eussia  I  delighted  him 
very  much  by  describing  how  I  had  told  the  fortunes  by  hand 
of  six  gypsy  girls.  He  declared  that  telling  fortunes  to  gyp 
sies  was  the  very  height  of  impudence ! 

"  A  hundred  jests  have  passed  between  us  twain, 
Which,  had  I  space,  I'd  gladly  tell  again." 

A  call  which  I  have  had,  since  I  wrote  that  last  line,  from 
John  Postle  Heseltine,  Esq.,  reminds  me  that  he  was  one  of 
the  first  acquaintances  I  made  in  London.  Mr.  E.  Edwards, 
a  distinguished  etcher  and  painter,  gave  me  a  dinner  at  Rich 
mond,  at  which  Mr.  Heseltine  was  present.  In  Edwards' 
studio  I  met  with  Bracquemond  and  Legros,  both  of  whom 
etched  my  portrait  on  copper.  Mr.  Heseltine  is  well  known 
as  a  very  distinguished  artist  of  the  same  kind,  as  well  as  for 
many  other  things.  Edwards  was  very  kind  to  me  in  many 
ways  for  years.  Legros  I  found  very  interesting.  There  was 
in  Edwards'  studio  the  unique  complete  collection  of  the  etch 
ings  of  Meryon,  which  we  examined.  Legros  remarked  of 
the  incredibly  long-continued  industry  manifested  in  some  of 
the  pictures,  that  lunatics  often  manifested  it  to  a  high  de 
gree.  Meryon,  as  is  known,  was  mad.  I  had  etched  a  very 
little  myself  and  was  free  of  the  fraternity. 

Within  a  few  days  Mr.  Strahan,  the  publisher,  took  me  to 
Mr.  (now  Lord)  Tennyson's  reception,  where  I  met  with 
many  well-known  people.  Among  them  were  Lady  Char 
lotte  Locker  and  Miss  Jean  Ingelow.  These  ladies,  with 
great  kindness,  finding  that  I  was  married,  called  on  Mrs. 
Leland,  and  invited  us  to  dine.  I  became  a  constant  visitor 
for  years  at  Miss  Ingelow's  receptions,  where  I  have  met 
Ruskin,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  S.  C.  Hall  (whom  I  had  seen  in  1848), 


392  MEMOIRS. 

Calvcrly,  Edmund  Gosse,  Hamilton  Ai'de,  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Alfred  Hunt.  I  conversed  with  Tennyson,  but  little  passed 
between  us  on  that  occasion.  I  got  to  know  him  far  better 
"later  on." 

I  here  anticipate  by  several  years  two  interviews  which  I 
had  with  Tennyson  in  1875,  who  had  ad  interim  been  de 
servedly  "lauded  into  Lordliness,"  and  which,  to  him  at 
least,  were  amusing  enough  to  be  recalled.  The  first  was  at 
a  dinner  at  Lady  Franklin's,  and  her  niece  Miss  Cracroft. 
And  here  I  may,  in  passing,  say  a  word  as  to  the  extraordinary 
kindly  nature  of  Lady  Franklin.  I  think  it  was  almost  as 
soon  as  we  became  acquainted  that  she,  learning  that  I  suf 
fered  at  times  from  gout,  sent  me  a  dozen  bottles  of  a  kind 
of  bitter  water  as  a  cure. 

There  were  at  the  dinner  as  guests  Mr.  Tennyson,  Sir 
Samuel  and  Lady  Baker,  Dr.  Quain,  and  myself.  There  was 
no  lack  of  varied  anecdote,  reminiscences  of  noted  people  and 
of  travel ;  but  by  far  the  most  delightful  portion  of  it  all  was 
to  watch  the  gradual  unfreezing  of  Tennyson,  and  how  from 
a  grim  winter  of  taciturnity,  under  the  glowing  influence  of 
the  sun  of  wine,  as  the  Tuscan  Eedi  hath  it — 

"  Dell'  Indico  Orients 
Domator  glorioso  il  Dio  di  Vino  .  .  . 
Di  quel  Sol,  che  in  Ciel  vedete  .  .  ."— 

he  passed  into  a  glorious  summer  of  genial  feeling.  I  led 
unto  it  thus : — My  friend  Professor  Palmer  and  I  had  pro 
jected  a  volume  of  songs  in  English  Eomany  or  Gypsy,  which 
is  by  far  the  sweetest  and  most  euphonious  language  in  Eu 
rope.  My  friend  had  translated  "  Home  they  brought  her 
warrior  dead,"  by  Tennyson,  into  this  tongue,  and  I  had  the 
MS.  of  it  in  my  pocket.  Tennyson  was  very  much  pleased 
at  the  compliment,  and  asked  me  to  read  the  poem,  which  I 
did.  The  work  was  by  permission  dedicated  to  him.  At 
last,  when  dinner  was  over,  Tennyson,  who  had  disposed  of 
an  entire  bottle  of  port,  rose,  and  approaching  me,  took  me 


ENGLAND.  393 

gaily-gravely  by  botli  sides,  as  if  he  would  lift  me  up,  and 
drawing  himself  up  to  his  full  height,  said,  "  I  like  to  see  a 
poet  a  full-sized  substantial  man,"  or  "  tall  and  strong,"  or 
words  to  that  effect.  I  replied  that  it  was  very  evident  from 
the  general  appearance  of  Shakespeare's  bust  that  he  was  a 
very  tall  man,  but  that  though  the  thunder  of  height  had  hit 
twice — the  Poet  Laureate  being  the  second  case — that  I  had 
been  very  slightly  singed,  tall  as  I  was.  Enfin,  some  days 
after,  Tennyson  in  a  letter  invited  me  to  call  and  see  him 
should  I  ever  be  in  the  Isle  of  Wight ;  which  took  place  by 
mere  chance  some  time  after — in  fact,  I  did  not  know,  when 
I  was  first  at  the  hotel  in  Freshwater,  that  Tennyson  lived  at 
a  mile's  distance. 

I  walked  over  one  afternoon  and  sent  in  my  card.  Mr. 
Hallam  Tennyson,  then  a  very  handsome  young  man  of  win 
some  manner,  came  out  and  said  that  his  father  was  taking 
his  usual  siesta,  but  begged  me  to  remain,  kindly  adding, 
"  Because  I  know,  Mr.  Leland,  he  would  be  very  sorry  to  have 
missed  you."  After  a  little  time,  however,  Tennyson  himself 
appeared,  and  took  me  up  to  his  den  or  studio,  where  I  was 
asked  to  take  a  pipe,  which  I  did  with  great  good-will,  and 
blew  a  cloud,  enjoying  it  greatly,  because  I  felt  with  my  host, 
as  with  Bulwer,  that  we  had  quickly  crossed  acquaintanceship 
into  the  more  familiar  realm  where  one  can  talk  about  what 
ever  you  please  with  the  certainty  of  being  understood  and 
getting  a  sympathetic  answer.  There  are  lifelong  friends 
with  whom  one  never  really  gets  to  this,  and  there  are  ac 
quaintances  of  an  hour  at  table-d'hotes,  who  "  come  like  shad 
ows,  so  depart,"  who  talk  with  a  touch  to  our  hearts.  Bul 
wer  and  Tennyson  were  such  to  me,  and  apre  miro  zl,  as  the 
gypsies  say — on  my  life-soul ! — if  I  had  talked  with  them,  as 
I  did,  without  knowing  who  they  were,  I  should  have  recalled 
them  with  quite  as  much  interest  as  I  now  do,  and  see  them 
again  in  dreams.  And  here  I  may  add,  that  the  common-place 
saying  that  literary  men  are  rarely  good  talkers,  and  generally 
disappointing,  is  not  at  all  confirmed  by  my  experiences. 


394-  MEMOIRS. 

After  burning  our  tobacco,  in  Indian  fashion,  to  better 
acquaintance  (I  forgot  to  say  that  the  poet  had  two  dozen  clay 
pipes  ranged  in  a  small  wooden  rack),  we  went  forth  for 
a  seven  miles'  walk  on  the  Downs.  And  at  last,  from  the 
summit  of  one,  I  pointed  down  to  a  small  field  below,  and 
said 

But  first  I  must  specify  that  the  day  before  I  had  gone 
with  a  young  lady  of  fourteen  summers  named  Bee  or  Bea 
trice  Fredericson,  both  of  us  bearing  baskets,  to  pick  black 
berries  for  tea,  and  coming  to  a  small  field  which  was  com 
pletely  surrounded  by  a  hedge,  we  saw  therein  illimitable 
blackberries  glittering  in  the  setting  sunlight,  and  longed  to 
enter.  Finding  a  gap  which  had  been  filled  by  a  dead  thoru- 
bush,  I  removed  the  latter,  and,  going  in,  we  soon  picked  a 
quart  of  the  fruit.  But  on  leaving  we  were  met  by  the  farm 
er,  who  made  a  to-do,  charging  us  with  trespassing.  To  which 
I  replied,  "  Well,  what  is  to  pay  ?  "  He  asked  for  two  shil 
lings,  but  was  pacified  with  one  ;  and  so  we  departed. 

Therefore  I  said  to  Tennyson,  "  I  went  into  that  field  yes 
terday  to  pick  your  blackberries,  and  your  farmer  caught  us 
and  made  me  pay  a  shilling  for  trespassing." 

And  he  gravely  replied,  though  evidently  delighted — 

"  Served  you  right !  What  business  had  you  to  come  over 
my  hedge  into  my  field  to  steal  my  blackberries  ?  " 

"  Mea  culpa"  I  answered,  "  meet  maxima  cnlpa." 

"  Mr.  Leland,"  pursued  Tennyson,  as  gravely  as  ever, 
grasping  all  the  absurdity  of  the  thing  with  evident  enjoy 
ment,  "  you  have  no  idea  how  tourists  trespass  here  to  get  at 
me.  They  climb  over  my  gate  and  look  in  at  my  window's. 
It  is  a  fact — one  did  so  only  last  week.  But  I  declare  that 
you  are  the  very  first  poet  and  man  of  letters  who  ever  came 
here — to  steal  blackberries  !  "  Here  he  paused,  and  then 
added  forcibly — 

"  I  do  believe  you  are  a  gypsy,  after  all." 

Then  we  talked  of  the  old  manor-houses  in  the  neighbour 
hood,  and  of  the  famous  Mortstone,  a  supposed  Saxon  rude 


ENGLAND.  395 

monolith  near  by.  I  thought  it  prehistoric,  because  I  had 
dug  out  from  the  pile  of  earth  supporting  and  coeval  with  it 
(and  indeed  only  with  a  lead-pencil)  a  flint  flake  chipped  by 
hand  and  a  bit  of  cannel  coal,  which  indicate  dedication.  My 
host  listened  with  great  interest,  and  then  told  me  a  sad  tale  : 
how  certain  workmen  employed  by  him  to  dig  on  his  land  had 
found  a  great  number  of  old  Eoman  bronze  coins,  but,  instead 
of  taking  them  to  him,  had  kept  them,  though  they  cared  so 
little  for  them  that  they  gave  a  handful  to  a  boy  whom  they 
met.  "  I  told  them,"  said  Tennyson,  "  that  they  had  been 
guilty  of  malappropriation,  and  though  I  was  not  quite  sure 
whether  the  coins  belonged  to  me  or  to  the  Crown,  that  they 
certainly  had  no  right  to  them.  Whereupon  their  leader  said 
that  if  I  was  not  satisfied  they  would  not  work  any  longer  for 
me,  and  so  they  went  away."  I  had  on  this  occasion  a  long 
and  interesting  discussion  with  Mr.  Tennyson  relative  to  Walt 
Whitman,  and  involving  the  principles  or  nature  of  poetry. 
According  to  the  poet-laureate,  poetry,  as  he  understood  it, 
consisted  of  elevated  or  refined,  or  at  least  superior  thought, 
expressed  in  melodious  form,  and  in  this  latter  it  seemed  to 
him  (for  it  was  very  modestly  expressed)  that  Whitman  was 
wanting.  Wherein  he  came  nearer  to  the  truth  than  does 
Symonds,  who  overrates,  as  it  seems  to  me,  the  value,  as  re 
gards  art  and  poetry,  of  simply  equalising  all  human  intelli 
gences.  Though  I  never  met  Symonds,  there  was  mutual 
knowledge  between  us,  and  when  I  published  my  "  Etrusco- 
Roman  Remains  in  Popular  Traditions,"  which  contains  the 
results  of  six  years'  intimacy  with  witches  and  fortune-tellers, 
he  wrote  a  letter  expressing  enthusiastic  admiration  of  it  to 
Mr.  T.  Fisher  Unwin.  Now  all  three  of  these  great  men  are 
dead.  I  shall  speak  of  Whitman  anon,  for  in  later  years  for 
a  long  time  I  met  him  almost  daily. 

I  can  remember  that  during  the  conversation  Tennyson 
expressed  himself,  rather  to  my  amazement,  with  some  slight 
indignation  at  a  paltry  review  abusing  his  latest  work  ;  to 
which  I  replied — 


396  MEMOIRS. 

"  If  there  is  anything  on  earth  for  which  I  have  envied 
you,  even  more  than  for  your  great  renown  as  a  poet,  it  has 
been  because  I  supposed  you  were  completely  above  all  such 
attacks  and  were  utterly  indifferent  to  them."  Which  he 
took  amiably,  and  proceeded  to  discuss  ripe  fruit  and  wasps 
— or  their  equivalent.  Yet  I  doubt  whether  I  was  quite  in 
the  right,  since  those  who  live  for  fame  honourably  acquired 
must  ever  be  susceptible  to  stings,  small  or  great.  An  editor 
who  receives  abusive  letters  so  frequently  that  he  ends  by 
pitching  them  without  reading  into  the  waste-basket,  and 
often  treats  ribald  attacks  in  print  in  the  same  manner — as  I 
have  often  done — has  so  many  other  affairs  on  his  mind  that 
he  becomes  case-hardened.  But  I  have  observed  from  long 
experience  that  there  is  a  Nemesis  who  watches  those  who 
arrogate  the  right  to  lay  on  the  rod,  and  gives  it  to  them 
with  interest  in  the  end. 

It  was  very  soon  after  my  arrival  in  London  that  I  was 
invited  to  lunch  at  Hepworth  Dixon's  to  meet  Lord  Lytton, 
or  Bulwer,  the  great  writer.  His  works  had  been  so  intensely 
and  sympathetically  loved  by  me  so  long,  that  it  seemed  as  if 
I  had  been  asked  to  meet  some  great  man  of  the  past.  I 
found  him,  as  I  expected,  quite  congenial  and  wondrous 
kind.  I  remember  a  droll  incident.  Standing  at  the  head 
of  the  stairs,  he  courteously  made  way  and  asked  me  to  go 
before.  I  replied,  "  When  Louis  XIV.  asked  Crillon  to  do 
the  same,  Crillon  complied,  saying,  '  Wherever  your  Majesty 
goes,  be  it  before  or  behind,  is  always  the  first  place  or  post 
of  honour,'  and  I  say  the  same  with  him,"  and  so  went  in  ad 
vance  at  once.  I  saw  by  his  expression  that  he  was  pleased 
with  the  quotation. 

We  were  looking  at  a  portrait  of  Shakespeare  which 
Dixon  had  found  in  Russia.  Lord  Lytton  asked  me  if  I 
thought  it  an  original  or  true  likeness.  I  observed  that  the 
face  was  full  of  many  fine  seamy  lines,  which  infallibly  in 
dicate  great  nervous  genius  of  the  highest  order — noting  at 
the  same  time  that  Lord  Lytton's  countenance  was  very  much 


ENGLAND.  397 

marked  in  a  like  manner.  The  observation  was  new  to  him, 
and  he  seemed  to  be  interested  in  it,  as  he  always  was  in 
anything  like  chiromancy  or  metoscopy.  A  few  days  later  I 
was  invited  to  come  and  pass  nearly  a  week  with  Hepworth 
Dixon  at  Knebworth,  Lord  Lytton's  country  seat.  It  is  a 
very  picturesque  chateau,  profusely  adorned  with  fifteenth- 
century  Gothic  grotesques,  with  a  fine  antique  hall,  stained 
glass  windows,  and  gallery.  There  is  in  it  a  chamber  contain 
ing  a  marvellous  and  massive  carved  oak  bedstead,  the  posts 
of  which  are  human  figures  the  size  of  life,  and  in  it  and  in 
the  same  room  Queen  Elizabeth  is  said  to  have  slept  when 
she  heard  of  the  destruction  of  the  Spanish  Armada.  It  was 
the  room  of  honour,  and  it  had  been  kindly  assigned  to  me. 
It  all  seemed  like  a  dream. 

There  was  in  the  family  of  the  late  Lord  Lytton  his  son, 
who  made  a  most  favourable  impression  on  me.  I  think  the 
first  coup  was  my  finding  that  he  knew  the  works  of  An- 
dreini,  and  that  it  had  occurred  to  him  as  well  as  to  me  that 
Euphues  Lily's  book  had  been  modelled  on  them.  There 
was  also  his  wife,  a  magnificent  and  graceful  beauty ;  Lord 
Lytton's  nephew,  Mr.  Bulwer  ;  and  several  ladies.  The  first 
morning  we  all  fished  in  the  pond,  and,  to  my  great  amaze 
ment,  Lord  Lytton  pulled  out  a  great  one-eyed  perch !  I 
almost  expected  to  see  him  pull  out  Paul  Clifford  or  Zanoni 
next !  In  the  afternoon  we  were  driven  out  to  Cowper  Cas 
tle  to  see  a  fine  gallery  of  pictures,  our  host  acting  as  cice 
rone,  and  as  he  soon  found  that  I  was  fairly  well  educated  in 
art,  and  had  been  a  special  pupil  of  Thiersch  in  Munich,  and 
something  more  than  an  amateur,  we  had  many  interesting 
conversations.  I  think  I  may  venture  to  say  that  he  did  not 
expect  to  find  a  whilom  student  of  aesthetics,  art-history,  and 
philosophy  in  the  author  of  "  Hans  Breitmann."  What  was 
delightful  was  his  exquisite  tact  in  never  saying  as  much ; 
but  I  could  detect  it  in  the  sudden  interest  and  involuntary 
compliment  implied  in  his  tone  of  conversation.  In  a  very 
short  time  he  began  to  speak  to  me  on  all  literary  or  artistic 
18 


398  MEMOIRS. 

subjects  without  preliminary  question,  taking  it  for  granted 
that  I  understood  them  and  chimed  in  with  him.  I  was  with 
every  interview  more  and  more  impressed  with  his  culture 
— I  mean  with  what  had  resulted  from  his  reading — his 
marvellous  tact  of  kindness  in  small  things  to  all,  and 
his  quick  and  vigorous  comparing  and  contrasting  of  images 
and  drawing  conclusions.  But  there  was  evidently  enough 
a  firm  bed-rock  or  hard  pan  under  all  this  gold.  I  Avas 
amazed  one  day  when  a  footman,  who  had  committed 
some  bevue  or  blunder,  or  apprehended  something,  actu 
ally  turned  pale  and  stammered  with  terror  when  Lord 
Lytton  gravely  addressed  a  question  to  him.  I  never  in 
my  life  saw  a  man  so  much  frightened,  even  before  a  re 
volver. 

But  Lord  Lytton  was  beyond  all  question  really  interested 
when  he  found  me  so  much  at  home  in  Rosicrucian  and  oc 
cult  lore,  and  that  I  had  been  with  Justinus  Kerner  in 
Weinsberg,  and  was  familiar  with  the  forgotten  dusky  paths 
of  mysticism.  He  had  in  his  house  the  famous  Earl  Stan 
hope  crystal,  and  wished  me  to  sleep  with  it  under  my  pillow, 
but  I  was  so  afraid  lest  the  precious  relic  should  be  injured, 
that  I  resolutely  declined  the  honour,  for  which  I  am  now 
sorry,  for  I  sometimes  have  dreams  of  a  most  extraordinary 
character.  This  Stanhope  crystal  is  not,  however,  the  great 
mirror  of  Dr.  Dee,  though  it  has  been  said  to  be  so.  The 
latter  belonged  to  a  gentleman  in  London,  who  also  offered 
to  lend  it  to  me.  It  is  made  of  cannel  coal.  That  Lord 
Lytton  made  a  very  remarkable  impression  on  me  is  proved 
by  the  fact  that  I  continued  to  dream  of  him  at  long  inter 
vals  after  his  death ;  and  I  am  quite  sure  that  such  feeling 
is,  by  its  very  nature,  always  to  a  certain  slight  degree  recip 
rocal.  He  had  a  natural  and  unaffected  voice,  yet  one  with 
a  marked  character ;  something  like  Tennyson's,  which  was 
even  more  striking.  Both  were  far  removed  from  the  now 
fashionable  intonation,  which  is  the  admiration  and  despair 
of  American  swells.  It  is  only  the^m  de  siecle  form  of  the 


ENGLAND.  399 

demnition  dialect  of  the  Forties  and  the  La-ard  and  Lunnon 
of  an  earlier  age. 

Lord  Lytton  was  generally  invisible  in  the  morning, 
sometimes  after  lunch.  In  the  evening  he  came  out  splen 
didly  groomed,  fresh  as  a  rose,  and  at  dinner  and  after  was 
as  interesting  as  any  of  his  books.  He  had  known  "  every 
body  "  to  a  surprising  extent,  and  had  anecdotes  fresh  and 
vivid  of  every  one  whom  he  had  met.  He  loved  music,  and 
there  was  a  lady  who  sang  old  Spanish  ballads  with  rare  taste. 
I  enjoyed  myself  incredibly. 

I  may  be  excused  for  mentioning  here  that  I  sent  a  copy 
of  the  second  edition  of  my  "  Meister  Karl's  Sketch-Book  " 
to  Lord  Lytton.  No  one  but  Irving  and  Triibuer  had  ever 
praised  it.  When  Lord  Lytton  published  afterwards  "  Ken- 
elm  Chillingly,"  I  found  in  it  three  passages  in  which  I  recog 
nised  beyond  dispute  others  suggested  by  my  own  work.  I 
do  not  in  the  least  mean  that  there  was  any  borrowing  or 
taking  beyond  the  mere  suggestion  of  thought.  Why  I  think 
that  Lord  Lytton  had  these  hints  in  his  mind  is  that  he  gave 
the  name  of  Leland  to  one  of  the  minor  characters  in  the 
book. 

When  I  published  a  full  edition  of  "  Breitmann's  Poems," 
he  wrote  me  a  long  letter  criticising  and  praising  the  work, 
and  a  much  longer  and  closely  written  one,  of  seven  pages, 
relating  to  my  "  Confucius  and  Other  Poems."  I  was  sub 
sequently  invited  to  receptions  at  his  house  in  London,  where 
I  first  met  Browning,  and  had  a  long  conversation  with  him. 
I  saw  him  afterwards  at  Mrs.  Proctor's.  This  was  the  wife 
of  Barry  Cornwall,  whom  I  also  saw.  He  was  very  old  and 
infirm.  I  can  remember  when  the  "  Cornlaw  Ehymes"  rang 
wherever  English  was  read. 

As  I  consider  it  almost  a  duty  to  record  what  I  can  re 
member  of  Bulwer,  I  may  mention  that  one  evening,  at  his 
house  in  London,  he  showed  me  and  others  some  beautiful 
old  brass  salvers  in  repousse  work,  and  how  I  astonished  him 
by  describing  the  process,  and  declaring  that  I  could  produce 


400  MEMOIRS. 

a  facsimile  of  any  one  of  them  in  a  day  or  two ;  to  which 
assertion  hundreds  to  whom  I  have  taught  the  art,  as  well  as 
my  "  Manual  of  Repousse,"  and  another  on  "  Metal  Work," 
will,  I  trust,  bear  witness.  And  this  I  mention,  not  vainly, 
but  because  Lord  Lytton  seemed  to  be  interested  and  pleased, 
and  because,  in  after  years,  I  had  much  to  do  with  reviving 
the  practice  of  this  beautiful  art.  It  was  practising  this,  and 
a  three  years'  study  of  oak-wood  carving,  which  led  me  to 
write  on  the  Minor  Arts.  Mihi  CBS  et  trij)lex  robur. 

Lord  Lytton  had  the  very  curious  habit  of  making  almost 
invisible  hieroglyphics  or  crosses  in  his  letters — at  least  I 
found  them  in  those  to  me,  as  it  were  for  luck.  It  was  a 
very  common  practice  from  the  most  ancient  Egyptian  times 
to  within  two  centuries.  Lord  Lytton's  were  evidently  in 
tended  to  escape  observation.  But  there  was  indeed  a  great 
deal  in  his  character  which  would  escape  most  persons,  and 
which  has  not  been  revealed  by  any  writer  on  him.  This  I 
speedily  divined,  though,  of  course,  I  never  discovered  what 
it  all  was. 

Lord  Houghton.  "Richard  Monckton  Milnes,"  to  whom 
I  had  a  letter  of  introduction  from  Lorimer  Graham,  was 
very  kind  to  me.  I  dined  and  lunched  at  his  house,  where 
I  met  Odo  Russell  or  Lord  Ampthill,  the  Duke  of  Bedford, 
the  Hon.  Mrs.  Norton,  W.  W.  Story,  and  I  know  not  how 
many  more  distinguished  in  society,  or  letters.  At  Lord 
Lytton's  I  made  the  acquaintance  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington. 
I  believe,  however,  that  this  meeting  with  Lord  Houghton 
and  the  Duke  was  in  my  second  year  in  London. 

The  first  English  garden-party  which  I  ever  attended  was 
during  this  first  season,  at  the  villa  of  Mr.  Bohn,  the  pub 
lisher,  at  Twickenham.  There  I  made  the  acquaintance  of 
George  Cruikshank,  whom  I  afterwards  met  often,  and  knew 
very  well  till  his  death.  He  was  a  gay  old  fellow,  and  on 
this  occasion  danced  a  jig  with  old  Mr.  Bohn  on  the  lawn, 
and  joked  with  me.  There,  too,  we  met  Lady  Martin,  who 
had  been  the  famed  Helen  Faucit.  Cruikshank  was  always 


ENGLAND.  401 

inexhaustible  in  jokes,  anecdotes,  and  reminiscences.  At  his 
house  I  made  the  acquaintance  of  Miss  Ada  Cavendish. 

To  revert  to  Mr.  Trubner's,  I  may  say  that  one  evening 
after  dinner,  when,  genial  though  quiet,  Bret  Harte  was  one 
of  the  guests,  he  was  asked  to  repeat  the  "  Heathen  Chinee," 
which  he  could  not  do,  as  he  had  never  learned  it — which  is 
not  such  an  unusual  thing,  by  the  way,  as  many  suppose. 
But  I,  who  knew  it,  remarked,  "  Ladies  and  gentlemen,  it  is 
nothing  to  merely  write  a  poem.  True  genius  consists  in 
getting  it  by  or  from  heart  [from  Bret  Harte,  for  instance], 
and  repeating  it.  This  genius  nature  has  denied  to  the 
illustrious  poet  before  you — but  not  to  me,  as  I  will  now 
illustrate  by  declaiming  the  '  Heathen  Chinee.' "  Which 
performance  was  received  with  applause,  in  which  Harte 
heartily  joined.  But  iny  claim  to  possess  genius  would  hard 
ly  have  borne  examination,  for  it  was  years  before  I  ever 
learned  '*  Hans  Breitmann's  Barty,"  nor  would  I  like  to  risk 
even  a  pound  to  one  hundred  that  I  can  do  it  now  without 
mixing  the  verses  or  committing  some  error. 

Once  during  the  season  I  went  with  my  wife  and  Mr. 
W.  W.  Story  to  Eton,  where  we  supped  with  Oscar  Browning. 
We  were  taken  out  boating  on  the  river,  and  I  enjoyed  it 
very  much.  There  is  a  romance  about  the  Thames  asso 
ciated  with  a  thousand  passages  in  literature  which  goes  to 
the  very  heart.  I  was  much  impressed  by  the  marked  char 
acter  of  Mr.  Browning  and  his  frank,  genial  nature ;  and  I 
found  some  delightful  old  Latin  books  in  his  library.  May 
I  meet  with  many  such  men  ! 

This  year,  what  with  the  German  war  and  the  Triibner- 
Hotten  controversy,  my  "  Breitmann  Ballads  "  had  become,  I 
may  say,  well  known.  The  character  of  Hans  was  actually 
brought  into  plays  on  three  stages  at  once.  Boucicault, 
whom  I  knew  well  of  yore  in  America,  introduced  it  into 
something.  I  had  found  Ewan  Colquhoun — the  same  old 
sixpence — and  one  night  he  took  me  to  the  Strand  Theatre 
to  see  a  play  in  which  my  hero  was  a  prominent  part.  I  was 


402  MEMOIRS. 

told  afterwards  that  the  company  having  been  informed  of 
my  presence,  all  came  to  look  at  me  through  the  curtain-hole. 
There  were  some  imitations  of  my  ballads  published  in  Punch 
and  the  Standard,  and  the  latter  were  so  admirably  executed 
— pardon  the  vain  word ! — that  I  feared,  because  they  satir 
ised  the  German  cause,  that  they  might  be  credited  to  me ; 
therefore  I  wrote  to  the  journal,  begging  that  the  author 
would  give  some  indication  that  I  had  not  written  them, 
which  was  kindly  done.  Finally,  a  newspaper  was  started 
called  Hans  Breitmann,  and  the  Messrs.  Cope,  of  Liverpool, 
issued  a  brand  of  Hans  Breitmann  cigars.  Owing  to  the 
resemblance  between  the  words  Bret  and  Breit  there  was  a 
confusion  of  names,  and  my  photograph  was  to  be  seen  about 
town,  with  the  name  of  Bret  Harte  attached  to  it.  This 
great  injustice  to  Mr.  Harte  was  not  agreeable,  and  I,  or  my 
friends,  remonstrated  with  the  shop-folk  with  the  to-be-ex 
pected  result,  "  Yes-sir,  yes-sir — very  sorry,  sir — we'll  correct 
the  mistake,  sir !  "  But  I  don't  think  it  was  ever  corrected 
till  the  sale  ceased. 

I  was  sometimes  annoyed  with  many  imitations  of  my 
poems  by  persons  who  knew  no  German,  which  were  all 
attributed  to  me.  A  very  pious  Presbyterian  publication,  in 
alluding  to  something  of  the  kind,  said  that  "  Mr.  Leland, 
because  he  is  the  author  of  Bret  Harte,  thinks  himself  justified 
in  publishing  any  trash  of  this  description."  I  thought  this 
a  very  improper  allusion  for  a  clergyman,  not  to  say  libellous. 
In  fact,  many  people  really  believed  that  Bret  Harte  was  a 
nom  de  plume  or  the  title  of  a  poem.  And  I  may  here  say 
by  the  way  that  I  never  "  wrote  under  "  the  pseudonym  of 
Hans  Breitmaun  in  my  life,  nor  called  myself  any  such  name 
at  any  time.  It  is  simply  the  name  of  one  of  many  books 
which  I  have  written.  An  American  once  insisting  to  me 
that  I  should  be  called  so  from  my  work,  I  asked  him  if  he 
would  familiarly  accost  Mr.  Lowell  as  "Josh  Biglow."  If 
there  is  anything  in  the  world  which  denotes  a  subordinate 
position  in  the  social  scale  or  defect  in  education,  it  is  the 


ENGLAND.  403 

passion  to  call  men  "  out  of  their  names,"  and  never  feel 
really  acquainted  with  any  one  until  he  is  termed  Tom  or 
Jack.  It  is  doubtless  all  very  genial  and  jocose  and  sociable, 
but  the  man  who  shows  a  tendency  to  it  should  not  complain 
when  his  betters  put  him  in  a  lower  class  or  among  the 
"  lower  orders." 

Once  at  a  reception  at  George  Boughton's,  the  artist, 
there  was,  as  I  heard,  an  elderly  gentleman  rushing  about 
asking  to  see  or  be  introduced  to  Hart  Bretmann,  whose 
works  he  declared  he  knew  by  heart,  and  with  whom  he  was 
most  anxious  to  become  acquainted.  Whether  he  ever  dis 
covered  this  remarkable  conglomerate  I  do  not  know. 

I  once  made  the  acquaintance  of  an  American  at  the 
Langham  Hotel  who  declared  that  I  had  made  life  a  burden 
to  him.  His  name  was  H.  Brightman,  and  being  in  business 
in  N"ew  York,  he  never  went  to  the  Custom-House  or  Post- 
Office  but  what  the  clerks  cried  "  Hans  Brightman  !  of  course. 
Yes,  we  have  read  about  you,  sir — in  history." 

But  even  in  this  London  season  I  found  more  serious 
work  to  attend  to  than  comic  ballads  or  society.  Mr.  Triibner 
was  very  anxious  to  have  me  write  a  pamphlet  vindicating 
the  claim  of  Germany  to  Alsace  and  Lorraine,  and  I  offered 
to  do  it  gladly,  if  he  would  provide  all  the  historical  data 
or  material.  The  result  of  this  was  the  brochure  entitled 
"  France,  Alsace,  and  Lorraine,"  which  had  a  great  success. 
It  at  once  reappeared  in  America,  and  even  in  Spanish  in 
South  America.  The  German  Minister  in  London  ordered 
six  copies,  and  the  Times  made  the  work,  with  all  its  facts 
and  figures,  into  an  editorial  article,  omitting,  I  regret  to  say, 
to  mention  the  source  whence  it  was  derived ;  but  this  I  for 
give  -with  all  my  heart,  considering  the  good  words  which  it 
has  given  me  on  other  occasions.  For  the  object  of  the  work 
was  not  at  all  to  glorify  the  author,  but  to  send  home  great 
truths  at  a  very  critical  time ;  and  the  article  in  the  Times, 
which  was  little  else  but  my  pamphlet  condensed,  caused  a 
great  sensation.  But  the  principal  result  from  it  was  this  : 


404  MEMOIRS. 

I  had  iii  the  work  discussed  the  idea,  then  urged  by  the 
French  and  their  friends,  that,  to  avoid  driving  France  to 
"desperation,"  very  moderate  terms  should  be  accepted  in 
order  to  conciliate.  For  the  French,  as  I  observed  in  effect, 
will  do  their  very  ivorst  in  any  case,  and  every  possible  ex 
treme  should  be  anticipated  and  assumed.  This  same  argu 
ment  had  previously  been  urged  in  my  "  Centralisation  versus 
States  Eights." 

When  Prince  Bismarck  conversed  with  the  French  Com 
missioners  to  arrange  terms  of  peace,  he  met  this  argument 
of  not  driving  the  French  to  extremes  with  a  phrase  so  closely 
like  the  one  which  I  had  used  in  my  pamphlet,  that  neither 
Mr.  Triibner  nor  several  others  hesitated  to  declare  to  me 
that  it  was  beyond  all  question  taken  from  it.  Bismarck 
had  certainly  received  the  pamphlet,  which  had  been  rec 
ognised  by  the  Times,  and  in  many  other  quarters,  as  a 
more  than  ordinary  paper,  and  Prince  Bismarck,  like  all  great 
diplomatists,  prend  son  Men  oil  il  le  trouve.  In  any  case  this 
remains  true,  that  that  which  formed  the  settling  argument  of 
Germany,  found  at  the  time  expression  in  my  pamphlet  and 
in  the  Chancellor's  speech. 

"We  made  soon  after  a  visit  to  the  Rev.  Dean  and  Mrs. 
Carrington,  in  Booking,  Essex.  They  had  a  fair  daughter, 
Eva,  then  quite  a  girl,  who  has  since  become  well  known  as 
a  writer,  and  is  now  the  Countess  Cesaresco  Martinengro — 
an  Italian  name,  and  not  Romany-Gyps}7,  as  its  terminations 
would  seem  to  indicate.  There  is  in  the  village  of  Booking, 
at  a  corner,  a  curious  and  very  large  grotesque  figure  of  oak, 
which  was  evidently  in  the  time  of  Elizabeth  a  pilaster  in  some 
house-front.  My  friend  Edwards,  who  was  wont  to  roam  all 
over  England  in  a  mule-waggon  etching  and  sketching,  when 
in  Booking  was  informed  by  a  rustic  that  this  figure  was  the 
image  of  Harkiles  (Hercules),  a  heathen  god  formerly  wor 
shipped  in  the  old  Catholic  convent  upon  the  hill,  in  the  old 
times ! 

From  London  we  went  in  August,  1870,  to  Brighton,  stay- 


ENGLAND.  405 

ing  at  first  at  the  Albion  Hotel.  There,  under  the  influence 
of  fresh  sea-air,  long  walks  and  drives  in  all  the  country 
round,  I  began  to  feel  better,  yet  it  was  not  for  many  weeks 
that  I  fairly  recovered.  A  chemist  named  Phillips,  who 
supplied  me  with  bromide  of  potass,  suggested  to  me,  to  his 
own  loss,  that  I  took  a  great  deal  too  much.  I  left  it  off 
altogether,  substituting  pale  ale.  Finding  this  far  better,  I 
asked  Mr.  Phillips  if  he  could  not  prepare  for  me  lupulin,  or 
the  anodyne  of  hops.  He  laughed,  and  said,  "  Do  you  find 
the  result  required  in  ale  ?"  I  answered,  "  Yes."  "And  do 
you  like  ale  ?  "  "  Yes."  "  Then,"  he  answered,  "  why  don't 
you  drink  ale  ? "  And  I  did,  but  before  I  took  it  up  my 
very  vitality  seemed  to  be  well-nigh  exhausted  with  the 
bromide. 

Samuel  Laing,  M.  P.,  the  chairman  of  the  Brighton  Rail 
way,  had  at  that  time  a  house  in  Brighton,  with  several  sons 
and  daughters,  the  latter  of  whom  have  all  been  very  re 
markable  for  beauty  and  accomplishments.  In  this  home 
there  was  a  hospitality  so  profuse,  so  kind,  so  brilliant  and 
refined,  that  I  cannot  really  remember  to  have  ever  seen  it 
equalled,  and  as  we  fully  participated  in  it  at  all  times  in  every 
form,  I  should  feel  that  I  had  omitted  the  deepest  claim  to 
my  gratitude  if  I  did  not  here  acknowledge  it.  Mr.  Laing 
was  or  is  of  a  stock  which  deeply  appealed  to  my  sympathies, 
for  he  is  the  son  of  the  famous  translator  of  the  Heims- 
kringla,  a  great  collection  of  Xorse  sagas,  which  I  had  read, 
and  in  which  he  himself  somewhat  aided.  Of  late  years, 
since  he  has  retired  from  more  active  financial  business,  Mr. 
Laing  has  not  merely  turned  his  attention  to  literature ;  lie 
has  deservedly  distinguished  himself  by  translating,  as  I  may 
say,  into  the  clearest  and  most  condensed  or  succinct  and 
lucid  English  ever  written,  so  as  to  be  understood  by  the 
humblest  mind,  the  doctrines  of  Darwin,  Huxley,  and  the 
other  leading  scientific  minds  of  the  day.  Heine  in  his  time 
received  a  great  deal  of  credit  for  having  thus  acted  as  the 
flux  and  furnace  by  which  the  ore  of  German  philosophy  was 


406  MEMOIRS. 

smelted  into  pure  gold  for  general  circulation ;  but  I,  who 
have  translated  all  that  Heine  wrote  on  this  subject,  declare 
that  he  was  at  such  work  as  far  inferior  to  Samuel  Laing  as 
a  mere  verbal  description  of  a  beautiful  face  is  inferior  to  a 
first-class  portrait.  This  family  enters  so  largely  into  my 
reminiscences  and  experiences,  that  a  chapter  would  hardly 
suffice  to  express  all  that  I  can  recall  of  their  hospitality  for 
years,  of  the  dinners,  hunts,  balls,  excursions,  and  the  many 
distinguished  people  whom  I  have  met  under  their  roof.  It 
is  worth  noting  of  Mr.  Laing's  daughters,  that  Mary,  now 
Mrs.  Kennard,  is  at  the  head  of  the  sporting-novel  writers ; 
that  the  beautiful  Cecilia,  now  Mrs.  MacRae,  was  pronounced 
by  G.  H.  Lewes,  who  was  no  mean  judge,  to  be  the  first 
amateur  piauiste  in  England  ;  while  the  charming  "  Floy," 
or  Mrs.  Kennedy,  is  a  very  able  painter.  With  their  two 
very  pretty  sisters,  they  formed  in  1870  as  brilliant,  beau 
tiful,  and  accomplished  a  quintette  as  England  could  have 
produced. 

One  day  Mr.  Laing  organised  an  excursion  with  a  special 
train  to  Arundel  Castle.  By  myself  at  other  times  I  found 
my  way  to  Lewes  and  other  places  rich  in  legendary  lore. 
Of  this  latter  I  recall  something  worth  telling.  Harold,  the 
conquered  Saxon  king,  had  a  son,  and  the  conqueror  William 
had  a  daughter,  Gundrada.  The  former  became  a  Viking 
pirate,  and  in  his  old  age  a  monk,  and  was  buried  in  a 
church,  now  a  Presbyterian  chapel.  There  his  epitaph  may 
be  read  in  fine  bold  lettering,  still  distinct.  That  man  is 
dear  to  me. 

Gundrada  married,  died,  and  was  buried  in  a  church 
with  a  fine  Norman  tombstone  over  her  remains.  The 
church  was  levelled  with  the  ground,  but  the  slab  was  pre 
served  here  and  there  about  Lewes  as  a  relic.  When  the 
railway  was  built,  about  1849,  there  was  discovered,  where 
the  church  had  been,  the  bones  of  Gundrada  and  her  husband 
in  leaden  coffins  distinctly  inscribed  with  their  names.  A 
very  beautiful  Norman  chapel  was  then  built  to  receive  the 


ENGLAND. 


407 


coffins,  and  over  them  is  placed  the  original  memorial  in 
black  marble.  There  is  also  in  Lewes  an  archaeological  mu 
seum  appropriately  bestowed  in  an  old  Gothic  tower.  All 
of  which  things  did  greatly  solace  me.  As  did  also  the  Nor 
man  or  Gothic  churches  of  Shoreham,  Newport,  the  old 
manor  of  Kottingdeau,  and  the  marvellous  Devil's  Dyke, 
which  was  probably  a  Eoman  fort,  and  from  which  it  is 
said  that  fifty  towns  or  villages  may  be  seen  "far  in  the 
blue." 

One  day  I  went  with  my  wife  and  two  ladies  to  visit  the 
latter.  The  living  curiosity  of  the  place  was  a  famous  old 
gypsy  woman  named  Gentilla  Cooper,  a  pure  blood  or  real 
Kalorat  Eomany.  I  had  already  in  America  studied  Pott's 
"  Thesaurus  of  Gypsy  Dialects,"  and  picked  up  many  phrases 
of  the  tongue  from  the  works  of  Borrow,  Simson,  and  others. 
The  old  dame  tackled  us  at  once.  As  soon  as  I  could,  I 
whispered  in  her  ear  an  improvised  rhyme : — 

"  The  bashno  and  kani, 
The  rye  and  the  rani, 
Hav'd  akai  'pre  o  boro  Ion  pani." 

Which  means  that  the  cock  and  the  hen,  the  gentleman 
and  the  lady,  came  hither  across  the  great  salt  water.  The 
effect  on  the  gypsy  was  startling;  she  fairly  turned  pale. 
Hustling  the  ladies  away  to  one  side  to  see  a  beautiful  view, 
she  got  me  alone  and  hurriedly  exclaimed,  "  Rya — master ! 
~be  you  one  of  our  people  ?  "  with  much  more.  We  became 
very  good  friends,  and  this  little  incident  had  in  time  for  me 
great  results,  and  many  strange  experiences  of  gypsy  life. 

There  live  in  Brighton  two  ladies,  Miss  Horace  Smith 
and  her  sister  Eosa,  who  were  and  are  well  known  in  the 
cultured  world.  They  are  daughters  of  Horace  Smith,  who, 
with  his  brother  James,  wrote  the  "  Eejected  Addresses." 
Their  reminiscences  of  distinguished  men  are  extremely 
varied  and  interesting.  The  elder  sister  possesses  an  album 
to  which  Thackeray  contributed  many  verses  and  pen- 


408  MEMOIRS. 

sketches.  Their  weekly  receptions  were  very  pleasant ;  at 
them  might  be  seen  most  of  the  literary  or  social  celebrities 
who  came  to  Brighton.  A  visit  there  was  like  living  a 
chapter  in  a  book  of  memoirs  and  reminiscences.  I  have 
had,  if  it  be  only  a  quiet,  and  not  very  eventful  or  remark 
able,  at  least  a  somewhat  varied  life,  and  the  Laiugs  and 
Smiths,  with  their  surroundings,  form  two  of  its  most  inter 
esting  varieties.  I  believe  they  never  missed  an  opportunity 
to  do  us  or  any  one  a  kindly  act,  to  aid  us  to  make  congenial 
friends,  or  the  like.  How  many  good  people  there  really  are 
in  the  world  ! 

Of  these  ladies  the  author  of  "Gossip  of  the  Century" 
writes  : — 

"  Horace  Smith's  two  daughters  are  still  living,  and  in 
Brighton.  Their  very  pleasant  house  is  frequented  by  the 
best  and  most  interesting  kind  of  society,  affording  what  may 
be  called  a  salon,  that  rare  relic  of  ancient  literary  taste  and 
cementer  of  literary  intimacies — a  salon  which  the  cultivated 
consider  it  a  privilege  to  frequent,  and  where  these  ladies  re 
ceive  with  a  grace  and  geniality  which  their  friends  know 
how  to  appreciate.  It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  gather 
ings  of  this  description  seem  to  be  becoming  rarer  every  year, 
for  as  death  disturbs  them  society  seems  to  lack  the  spirit  or 
the  good  taste,  or  the  ability,  to  replace  them." 

Brighton  is  a  very  pleasant  place,  because  it  combines  the 
advantages  of  a  seaside  resort  with  those  of  a  clean  and 
cheerful  city.  "Walking  along  the  front,  you  have  a  brave 
outlook  to  the  blue  sea  on  one  hand,  and  elegant  shop-win 
dows  and  fine  hotels  on  the  other.  A  little  back  in  the  town 
on  a  hill  is  the  fine  old  fifteenth-century  church  of  St. 
Nicholas,  in  which  there  is  perhaps  the  most  curious  carved 
Norman  font  in  England ;  but  all  this  is  known  to  so  few 
visitors,  that  I  feel  as  if  I  were  telling  a  great  secret  in  letting 
it  out.  Smith's  book-store  on  the  Western  Road,  and  Bohn's 
near  the  station,  are  kept  by  very  well-informed  and  very 
courteous  men.  I  have  been  much  indebted  to  the  former 


ENGLAND.  409 

in  many  ways,  and  found  by  his  aid  many  a  greatly  needed 
and  rare  work. 

When  I  first  went  to  Brighton  there  was  one  evening  a 
brilliant  aurora  borealis.  As  I  looked  at  it,  I  heard  an  Eng 
lishman  say,  to  my  great  amazement,  it  was  the  first  time  he 
had  ever  seen  one  in  his  life !  I  once  saw  one  in  America  of 
such  extraordinary  brilliancy  and  duration,  that  it  prolonged 
the  daylight  for  half  an  hour  or  more,  till  I  became  amazed, 
and  then  found  it  was  a  Northern  Light.  It  lasted  till  sun 
rise  in  all  its  splendour.  I  have  taken  down  from  Algonkin 
Indians  several  beautiful  legends  relating  to  them.  In  one, 
the  Milky  Way  is  the  girdle  of  a  stupendous  deity,  and  the 
Northern  Lights  the  splendid  gleams  emitted  by  his  ball 
when  playing.  In  another,  the  narrator  describes  him  as 
clad  in  an  ineffable  glory  of  light,  and  in  colours  unknown 
on  earth ! 

And  this  reminds  me  further  that  I  have  just  read  in  the 
newspapers  of  the  death  of  Edwin  Booth,  who  was  born 
during  the  famous  star  shower  of  1833,  which  phenomenon  I 
witnessed  from  beginning  to  end,  and  remember  as  if  it  were 
only  yesterday.  Now,  I  was  actually  dreaming  that  I  was  in 
a  room  in  which  cigars  were  flying  about  in  every  direction, 
when  my  father  came  and  woke  me  and  my  brother  Henry, 
to  come  and  see  an  exceeding  great  marvel.  There  were  for  a 
long  time  many  thousands  of  stars  at  once  in  the  sky,  all  shoot 
ing,  as  it  were,  or  converging  towards  a  centre.  They  were 
not  half  so  long  as  the  meteors  which  we  see ;  one  or  two  had 
a  crook  or  bend  in  the  middle  (e.  g.,  •***>--  ,  IL  *V 

The  next  day  I  was  almost  alone  at  school  in  the  glory  of 
having  seen  it,  for  so  few  people  were  awake  in  sober  Phila 
delphia  at  three  in  the  morning  that  one  of  the  newspapers 
ridiculed  the  whole  story. 

I  can  distinctly  recall  that  the  next  day,  at  Mr.  Alcott's, 
I  read  through  a  very  favourite  work  of  mine,  a  translation 
of  the  German  Das  Mahrchen  ohne  Ende, — "  The  Story  with 
out  an  End." 


410  MEMOIRS. 

All  kinds  of  odd  fish  came  to  Brighton,  floating  here  and 
there ;  but  two  of  the  very  oddest  were  encountered  by  me 
in  it  on  my  last  visit.  I  was  looking  into  a  chemist's  win 
dow,  when  two  well-dressed  and  decidedly  jolly  feminines, 
one  perhaps  of  thirty  years,  and  the  other  much  younger  and 
quite  pretty,  paused  by  me,  while  the  elder  asked— 

"Are  you  looking  for  a  hair-restorer?" 

"  I  am  not,  though  I  fear  I  need  one  much  more  than 
you  do." 

"  The  search  for  a  good  hair-restorer,"  she  replied  in 
Italian,  "  is  as  vain  as  the  search  for  happiness." 

"  True,"  I  answered  in  the  same  tongue,  "  and  unless  you 
have  the  happiness  in  you,  or  a  beautiful  head  of  hair  like 
yours  already  growing  on  you,  you  will  find  neither." 

"  What  we  forget"  added  the  younger  in  Spanish,  "  is  the 
best  part  of  our  happiness." 

" Senorita, parece  que  no  ha  olvidado  su  Espanol" — The 
young  lady  appears  not  to  have  forgotten  her  Spanish — I 
replied.  (Mine  is  not  very  good.) 

"  There  is  no  use  asking  whether  you  talk  French,"  said 
the  elder.  " Konnen  Sie  aucli  Deutsch  sprechen? " 

"Jrt  wolill    Even  worse  than  German  itself,"  I  answered. 

Just  then  there  came  up  to  us  a  gypsy  girl  whom  I  knew, 
with  a  basket  of  flowers,  and  asked  me  in  Gypsy  to  buy  some ; 
but  I  said,  "Parraco  pen,jd  vrl,  mandy  Jcdms  kek  ruzhia 
Jcedivvus  " — Thank  you,  sister,  no  flowers  to-day — and  she 
darted  away. 

"  Did  you  understand  that  9  "  I  inquired. 

"  No ;  what  was  it  ?  " 

"  Gitano — gypsy." 

"  But  how  in  Heaven's  name,"  cried  the  girl,  "  could  she 
know  that  you  spoke  Gitano  ?  " 

"  Because  I  am,"  I  replied  slowly  and  grimly,  "  the  chief 
of  all  the  gypsies  in  England,  the  boro  Romany  rye  and  Presi 
dent  of  the  Gypsy  Society.  Subscription  one  pound  per 
annum,  which  entitles  you  to  receive  the  journal  for  one  year, 


ENGLAND. 

and  includes  postage.  Behold  in  me  the  gypsy  king,  whom 
all  know  and  fear  !  I  shall  be  happy  to  put  your  names  down 
as  subscribers." 

At  this  appalling  announcement,  which  sounded  like  an 
extract  from  a  penny  dreadful,  my  two  romantic  friends 
looked  absolutely  bewildered.  They  seemed  as  if  they  had 
read  in  novels  how  mysterious  gypsy  chiefs  cast  aside  their 
cloaks,  revealing  themselves  to  astonished  maidens,  and  as  I 
had  actually  spoken  Gitano  to  a  gypsy  in  their  hearing,  it 
must  be  so.  They  had  come  for  wool  with  all  their  languages, 
poor  little  souls  !  and  gone  back  shorn.  The  elder  said  some 
thing  about  their  having  just  come  to  Brighton  for  six  hours' 
frolic,  and  so  they  departed.  They  had  had  their  spree. 

I  have  often  wondered  what  under  the  sun  they  could 
have  been.  Attaches  of  an  opera  company — ladies'-maids 
who  had  made  the  grand  tour — who  knows?  A  mad  world, 
my  masters ! 

I  can  recall  of  that  first  year,  as  of  many  since  at  Brighton, 
long  breezy  walks  on  the  brow  of  the  chalk  cliffs,  looking  out 
at  the  blue  sea  white  capped,  or  at  the  downs  rolling  inland 
to  Newport,  sometimes  alone,  at  times  in  company.  On  all 
this  chalk  the  grass  does  not  grow  to  more  than  an  inch  or 
so  in  length,  and  as  the  shortest,  tenderest  food  is  best  for 
sheep,  it  is  on  this  that  they  thrive — I  believe  by  millions — 
yielding  the  famous  South  Downs  mutton.  In  or  on  this 
grass  are  incredible  numbers  of  minute  snails,  which  the 
sheep  are  said  to  devour ;  in  fact,  I  do  not  see  how  they  could 
eat  the  grass  without  taking  them  in,  and  these  contribute  to 
give  the  mutton  its  delicate  flavour.  Snails  are  curious  beings. 
Being  epicene,  they  conduct  their  wooings  on  the  mutual 
give  and  take  principle,  which  would  save  human  beings,  a 
great  deal  of  spasmodic  flirtation,  and  abolish  the  whole  femme 
incomprise  business,  besides  a  great  many  bad  novels,  if  we 
could  adopt  it.  "When  winter  comes,  half-a-dozen  of  them 
retire  into  a  hole  in  a  bank,  connect  themselves  firmly  into  a 
loving  band  like  a  bunch  of  grapes  by  the  tenderest  ties,  and 


412  MEMOIRS. 

stay  there  till  spring.  Finally,  in  folk-lore  the  snail  is  an 
uncanny  or  demoniac  being,  because  it  has  horns.  Its  shell 
is  an  amulet,  and  the  presentation  of  one  by  a  lady  to  a  gen 
tleman  is  a  very  decided  declaration  of  love,  especially  in 
Germany.  Sed  tnittamus  hcec. 

At  this  time,  and  for  some  time  to  come,  I  was  engaged 
in  collecting  and  correcting  a  book  of  poems  of  a  more  serious 
character  than  the  "  Breitmann  Ballads."  This  was  "The 
Music  Lesson  of  Confucius  and  other  Poems."  Of  which 
book  I  can  say  truly  that  it  had  a  succes  d'estime,  though  it 
had  a  very  small  sale.  There  were  in  it  ten  or  twelve  ballads 
only  which  were  adapted  to  singing,  and  all  of  these  were  set 
to  music  by  Carlo  Pinsutti,  Virginia  Gabriel,  or  others.  There 
was  in  it  a  poem  entitled  "  On  Mount  Meru."  In  this  the 
Creator  is  supposed  to  show  the  world  when  it  was  first  made 
to  Satan.  The  adversary  finds  that  all  is  fit  and  well,  save 
"  the  being  called  Man,"  who  seems  to  him  to  be  the  worst 
and  most  incongruous.  To  which  the  Demiurgus  replies 
that  Man  will  in  the  end  conquer  all  things,  even  the  devil 
himself.  And  at  the  last  the  demon  lies  dying  at  the  feet  of 
God,  and  confesses  that  "  Man,  thy  creature  hath  vanquished 
me  for  ever —  Vicisti  Galilme  I  "  Some  years  after  I  read  a 
work  by  a  French  writer  in  which  this  same  idea  of  God  and 
the  devil  is  curiously  carried  out  and  illustrated  by  the  his 
tory  of  architecture.  And  as  in  the  case  of  the  letter  from 
Lord  Lytton  Bulwcr,  warm  praise  from  other  persons  of  high 
rank  in  the  literary  world  and  reviews,  I  had  many  proofs 
that  these  poems  had  made  a  favourable  impression.  The 
only  exception  which  I  can  recall  was  a  very  sarcastic  review 
in  the  AtJicncewn,  in  which  the  writer  declared  his  belief 
that  the  poems  or  Legends  of  Perfumes  in  the  book  were 
originally  written  as  advertisements  of  some  barber  or  trades 
man,  and  being  by  him  rejected  as  worthless,  had  been  thrown 
back  on  my  hands  !  Other  works  by  me  it  treated  kindly 
— so  it  goes  in  this  world  —  like  a  recipe  for  a  cement 
which  I  have  just  copied  into  my  great  work  on  "  Mend- 


ENGLAND. 

ing  and  Repairing" — in  which  vinegar  is  combined  with 
sugar. 

While  at  Brighton  we  met  Louis  Blanc,  whom  we  had 
previously  seen  several  times  at  the  Triibners',  in  London.  In 
Brighton  he  heard  the  news  of  the  overthrow  of  the  Empire 
and  departed  for  Paris.  At  Christmas  we  went  to  London 
to  visit  the  Triibners,  and  thence  to  the  Langham  Hotel, 
where  we  remained  till  July.  I  recall  very  little  of  what  I 
witnessed  or  did  beyond  seeing  the  Queen  prorogue  Parlia 
ment  and  translating  ScheffePs  Gaudeamus,  a  little  volume 
of  German  humorous  poems.  Scheffel,  as  I  have  before 
written,  was  an  old  Mitkneipant,  or  evening-beer  companion 
of  mine  in  Heidelberg. 

In  July  we  made  up  a  travelling  party  with  Mrs.  S.  Laing 
and  her  daughters  Cecilia  and  Floy,  and  departed  for  a  visit 
to  the  Rhine — that  is  to  say,  these  ladies  preceded  us,  and  we 
joined  them  at  the  Hotel  des  Quatre  Saisons  in  Homburg.  It 
was  a  very  brilliant  season,  for  the  German  Emperor,  fresh 
with  the  glory  of  his  great  victory,  was  being  feted  every 
where,  and  Homburg  the  brilliant  was  not  behind  the  Ger 
man  world  in  this  respect.  I  saw  the  great  man  frequently, 
near  and  far,  and  was  much  impressed  with  his  appearance. 
Punch  had  not  long  before  represented  him  as  Hans  Breit- 
mann  in  a  cartoon,  deploring  that  he  had  not  squeezed  more 
milliards  out  of  the  French,  and  I  indeed  found  in  the  origi 
nal  very  closely  my  ideal  of  Hans,  who  always  occurs  to  me 
as  a  German  gentleman,  who  drinks,  fights,  and  plunders, 
not  as  a  mere  rowdy,  raised  above  his  natural  sphere,  but  as 
a  rough  cavalier.  And  that  the  great-bearded  giant  Emperor 
Wilhelm  did  drink  heavily,  fight  hard,  and  mulct  France 
mightily,  is  matter  of  history.  This  was  the  last  year  of  the 
gaming-tables  at  Homburg.  Apropos  of  these,  the  roulette- 
table  was  placed  in  the  Homburg  Museum,  where  it  may  be 
seen  amid  many  Roman  relics.  Two  or  three  years  ago,  while 
I  was  in  the  room,  there  came  in  a  small  party  of  English  or 
Yankee  looking  or  gazing  tourists,  to  whom  the  attendant 


414  MEMOIRS. 

pointed  out  the  roulette-table.  "  And  did  the  old  Romans 
really  play  at  roulette,  and  was  that  one  of  their  tables?" 
said  the  leader  of  the  visitors.  This  ready  simple  faith  indi 
cates  the  Englishman.  The  ordinary  American  is  always 
possessed  with  the  conviction  that  everything  antique  is  a 
forgery.  Once  when  I  was  examining  the  old  Viking  armour 
in  the  Museum  of  Copenhagen,  a  Yankee,  in  whose  face  a 
general  vulgar  distrust  of  all  earthly  things  was  strongly 
marked,  came  up  to  me  and  asked,  "  Do  you  believe  that  all 
these  curiosities  air  genooine  ?  "  "  I  certainly  do,"  I  replied. 
With  an  intensely  self-satisfied  air  he  rejoined,  "  I  guess  you 
can't  fool  me  with  no  such  humbug." 

There  was  a  great  deal  of  cholera  that  year  in  Germany, 
and  I  had  a  very  severe  attack  of  it  either  in  an  incipient 
form  or  something  thereunto  allied :  suffice  it  to  say  that  for 
twelve  hours  I  almost  thought  I  should  die  of  pure  pain.  I 
took  in  vain  laudanum,  cayenne  pepper,  brandy,  camphor, 
and  kino — nothing  would  remain.  At  last,  at  midnight, 
when  I  was  beginning  to  despair,  or  just  as  I  felt  like  being 
wrecked,  I  succeeded  in  keeping  a  little  weak  laudanum  and 
water  on  my  stomach,  and  then  the  point  was  cleared.  After 
that  I  took  the  other  remedies,  and  was  soon  well.  But  it  was 
a  crisis  of  such  fearful  suffering  that  it  all  remains  vividly  im 
pressed  on  my  memory.  I  do  not  know  whether  any  sensible 
book  has  ever  been  written  on  the  moral  influence  of  pain,  but 
it  is  certain  that  a  wonderful  one  might  be.  So  far  as  I  can 
understand  it,  I  think  that  in  the  vast  majority  of  cases  it  is 
an  evil,  or  one  of  Nature's  innumerable  mistakes  or  diva 
gations,  not  as  yet  outgrown  or  corrected ;  and  it  is  the  great 
error  of  Buddhistic-Christianity  that  it  accepts  pain  not 
merely  as  inevitable,  but  glorifies  and  increases  it,  instead  of 
making  every  conceivable  exertion  to  diminish  it.  Herein 
clearly  lies  the  difference  between  Science  and  Religion.  Sci 
ence  strives  in  every  way  to  alleviate  pain  and  suffering;  errone 
ous  "  Religion  "  is  based  on  it.  During  the  Middle  Ages,  the 
Church  did  all  in  its  power  to  hinder,  if  not  destroy,  the 


ENGLAND. 

healing  art.  It  made  anatomy  of  the  human  body  a  crime, 
and  carried  its  precautions  so  far  that,  quite  till  the  Reforma 
tion,  the  art  of  healing  (as  Paracelsus  declares)  was  chiefly  in 
the  hands  of  witches  and  public  executioners.  Torturers, 
chiefly  clergymen  such  as  Grillandus,  were  in  great  honour, 
while  the  healing  leech  was  disreputable.  It  was  not,  as 
people  say,  "  the  age  "  which  caused  all  this — it  was  the  result 
of  religion  based  on  crucifixion  and  martyrdoms  and  pain — in 
fact,  on  that  element  of  torture  which  we  are  elsewhere 
taught,  most  inconsistently,  is  the  special  province  of  the 
devil  in  hell.  The  cant  of  this  still  survives  in  Longfellow's 
"  Suffer  and  be  strong,"  and  in  the  pious  praise  of  endur 
ance  of  pain.  What  the  world  wants  is  the  hope  held  out  to 
it,  or  enforced  on  it  as  a  religion  or  conviction,  that  pain  and 
suffering  are  to  be  diminished,  and  that  our  chief  duty  should 
consist  in  diminishing  them,  instead  of  always  praising  or 
worshipping  them  as  a  cross ! 

We  left  our  friends  and  went  for  a  short  time  to  Switzer 
land,  where  we  visited  Lucerne,  Interlaken,  Basle,  and  Berne. 
Thence  we  returned  to  London  and  the  Langham  Hotel. 
This  was  at  that  time  under  the  management  of  Mr.  John 
Sanderson,  an  American,  whom  I  had  known  of  old.  He 
was  a  brother  of  Professor  Sanderson,  of  Philadelphia,  who 
wrote  a  remarkably  clever  work  entitled  TJie  American  in 
Paris.  John  Sanderson  himself  had  contributed  many  arti 
cles  to  Appletons'  Cydopcedia,  belonged  to  the  K"ew  York 
Century  Club,  and,  like  all  the  members  of  his  family,  had 
culture  in  music  and  literary  taste.  While  he  managed  the 
Langham  it  was  crowded  during  all  the  year,  as  indeed  any 
decent  hotel  almost  anywhere  may  be  by  simple  proper  lib 
eral  management.  This  is  a  subject  which  I  have  studied 
an  fond,  having  read  Das  Hotel  wescn  der  Gcgemvart,  a  very 
remarkable  work,  and  passed  more  than  twenty  years  of  my 
life  in  hotels  in  all  countries. 

I  can  remember  that  during  the  first  year  of  my  residence 
in  England  I  tried  to  persuade  a  chemist  to  import  from 


416  MEMOIRS. 

South  America  the  coca  leaf,  of  which  not  an  ounce  was  then 
consumed  in  Europe.  Weston  the  walker  brought  it  into 
fashion  "  later  on."  I  had  heard  extraordinary  and  authen 
tic  accounts  of  its  enabling  Indian  messengers  to  run  all  day, 
from  a  friend  who  had  employed  them.  Apropos  of  this,  "  I 
do  recall  a  wondrous  pleasant  tale."  My  cousin,  Godfrey 
Davenport,  a  son  of  the  Uncle  Seth  mentioned  in  my  earlier 
life,  owned  what  was  regarded  as  the  model  plantation  of 
Louisiana.  My  brother  Henry  visited  him  one  winter,  and 
while  there  was  kindly  treated  by  a  very  genial,  hospitable 
neighbouring  planter,  whom  I  afterwards  met  at  my  father's 
house  in  Philadelphia.  He  was  a  good-looking,  finely-formed 
man,  lithe  and  active  as  a  panther — the  replica  of  Albert 
Pike's  "fine  Arkansas  gentleman."  And  here  I  would  fain 
disquisit  on  Pike,  but  type  and  time  are  pressing.  Well,  this 
gentleman  had  one  day  a  difference  of  opinion  with  another 
planter,  who  was,  like  himself,  a  great  runner,  and  drawing 
his  bowie  knife,  pursued  him  on  the  run,  twenty-two  mile?, 
ere  he  "got  "his  victim.  The  distance  was  subsequently 
measured  and  verified  by  the  admiring  neighbours,  who  put 
up  posts  in  commemoration  of  such  an  unparalleled  pedes 
trian  feat. 

When  I  returned  to  Brighton,  after  getting  into  lodgings, 
I  began  to  employ  or  amuse  myself  in  novel  fashion.  Old 
Gentilla  Cooper,  the  gypsy,  had  an  old  brother  named  Mat 
thias,  a  full-blood  Romany,  of  whom  all  his  people  spoke  as 
being  very  eccentric  and  wild,  but  who  had  all  his  life  a  fancy 
for  picking  up  the  old  "  Egyptian  "  tongue.  I  engaged  him 
to  come  to  me  two  or  three  times  a  week,  at  half-a-crown  a 
visit,  to  give  me  lessons  in  it.  As  he  had  never  lived  in 
houses,  and,  like  Regnar  Lodbrog,  had  never  slept  under  a 
fixed  roof,  unless  when  he  had  taken  a  nap  in  a  tavern  or 
stable,  and  finally,  as  his  whole  life  had  been  utterly  that  of 
a  gypsy  in  the  roads,  at  fairs,  or  "  by  wood  and  wold  as  out 
laws  wont  to  do,"  I  found  him  abundantly  original  and  in 
teresting.  And  as  on  account  of  his  eccentricity  and  amus- 


ENGLAND.  417 

ing  gifts  he  bad  always  been  welcome  iu  every  camp  or  tent, 
and  was  watchful  withal  and  crafty,  there  was  not  a  phase, 
hole,  or  corner  of  gypsy  life  or  a  member  of  the  fraternity 
with  which  or  whom  he  was  not  familiar.  I  soon  learned 
his  jargon,  with  every  kind  of  gypsy  device,  dodge,  or  pecul 
iar  custom,  and,  with  the  aid  of  several  works,  succeeded  in 
drawing  from  the  recesses  of  his  memory  an  astonishing 
number  of  forgotten  words.  Thus,  to  begin  with,  I  read  to 
him  aloud  the  Turkish  Gypsy  Dictionary  of  Paspati.  When 
he  remembered  or  recognised  a  word,  or  it  recalled  another, 
I  wrote  it  down.  Then  I  went  through  the  vocabularies  of 
Liebrich,  Pott,  Simson,  &c.,  and  finally  through  Brice's 
Hindustani  Dictionary  and  the  great  part  of  a  much  larger 
work,  and  one  in  Persian.  The  reader  may  find  most  of  the 
results  of  Matty's  teaching  in  my  work  entitled  "  The  Eng 
lish  Gypsies  and  their  Language."  Very  often  I  went  with 
my  professor  to  visit  the  gypsies  camped  about  Brighton,  far 
or  near,  and  certainly  never  failed  to  amuse  myself  and  pick 
up  many  quaint  observations.  In  due  time  I  passed  to  that 
singular  state  when  I  could  never  walk  a  mile  or  two  in  the 
country  anywhere  without  meeting  or  making  acquaintance 
with  some  wanderer  on  the  highways,  by  use  of  my  newly- 
acquired  knowledge.  Thus,  I  needed  only  say,  "  Seen  any 
of  the  Coopers  or  Bosvilles  lately  on  the  drum?"  (road),  or 
"  Do  you  know  Sam  Smith  ?  "  &c.,  to  be  recognised  as  one  of 
the  grand  army  in  some  fashion.  Then  it  was  widely  ru 
moured  that  the  Coopers  had  got  a  rye,  or  master,  who  spoke 
Romany,  and  was  withal  not  ungenerous,  so  that  in  due  time 
there  was  hardly  a  wanderer  of  gypsy  kind  in  Southern  Eng 
land  who  had  not  heard  of  me.  -And  though  there  are  thou 
sands  of  people  who  are  more  thoroughly  versed  in  Society 
than  I  am,  I  do  not  think  there  are  many  so  much  at  home 
in  such  extremely  varied  phases  of  it  as  I  have  been.  I  have 
sat  in  a  gypsy  camp,  like  one  of  them,  hearing  all  their  little 
secrets  and  talking  familiarly  in  Romany,  and  an  hour  after 
dined  with  distinguished  people ;  and  this  life  had  many 


418  MEMOIRS. 

other  variations,  and  they  came  daily  for  many  years.  My 
gypsy  experiences  have  not  been  so  great  as  those  of  Francis 
H.  Groome  (once  a  pupil  and  protege  of  Benfey),  or  the 
Grand  Duke  Josef  of  Hungary,  or  of  Dr.  Wlislocki,  but  next 
after  these  great  masters,  and  as  an  all-round  gypsy  rye  in 
many  lands,  I  believe  that  I  am  not  far  behind  any  aficionado 
who  has  as  yet  manifested  himself. 

To  become  intimate,  as  I  did  in  time,  during  years  in 
Brighton,  off  and  on,  with  all  the  gypsies  who  roamed  the 
south  of  England,  to  be  beloved  of  the  old  fortune-tellers 
and  the  children  and  mothers  as  I  was,  and  to  be  much  in 
tents,  involves  a  great  deal  of  strangely  picturesque  rural 
life,  night-scenes  by  firelight,  in  forests  and  by  river-banks, 
and  marvellously  odd  reminiscences  of  other  days.  There 
was  a  gypsy  child  who  knew  me  so  well  that  the  very  first 
words  she  could  speak  were  "  0  'omany  'i "  (0  Eomany  rye), 
to  the  great  delight  of  her  parents. 

After  a  little  while  I  found  that  the  Eomany  element 
was  spread  strangely  and  mysteriously  round  about  among 
the  rural  population  in  many  ways.  I  went  one  day  with 
Francis  H.  Groome  to  Cobham  Fair.  As  I  was  about  to 
enter  a  tavern,  there  stood  near  by  three  men  whose  faces  and 
general  appearance  had  nothing  of  the  gypsy,  but  as  I  passed 
one  said  to  the  other  so  that  I  could  hear — 

"  Diklc  adovo  rye,  se  o  Romany  rye,  yuv,  taclio !  "  (Look 
at  that  gentleman ;  he  is  a  gypsy  gentleman,  sure  ! ) 

I  naturally  turned  my  head  hearing  this,  when  he  burst 
oiit  laughing,  and  said — 

"  I  told  you  I'd  make  him  look  round." 

Once  I  was  startled  at  hearing  a  well-dressed,  I  may  say 
a  gentlemanly-looking  man,  seated  in  a  gig  with  a  fine  horse, 
stopping  by  the  road,  say,  as  I  passed  with  my  wife — 

"  DikTc  adovo  gorgio  adoi!"  (Look  at  that  Gentile,  or 
no-gypsy !) 

Not  being  accustomed  to  hear  myself  called  a  gorgio,  I 
glanced  up  at  him  angrily,  when  he,  perceiving  that  I  under- 


ENGLAND. 

stood  him  and  was  of  the  mysterious  brotherhood,  smiled,  and 
touched  his  hat  to  me.  One  touch  of  nature  makes  the 
whole  world  grin. 

But  the  drollest  proposal  ever  made  to  me  in  serious 
earnest  came  from  that  indomitable  incarnate  old  gypssissi- 
mus  Tsingarorum,  Matthew  Cooper,  who  proposed  that  I 
should  buy  a  donkey.  He  knew  where  to  get  one  for  a 
pound,  but  £2  10s.  would  buy  a  "  stunner."  He  would  bor 
row  a  small  cart  and  a  tent,  and  brown  my  face  and  hands 
so  that  I  would  be  dark  enough,  and  then  on  the  drum — 
"  over  the  hills."  As  for  all  the  expenses  of  the  journey,  I 
need  not  spend  anything,  for  he  could  provide  a  neat  nut- 
brown  maid,  who  would  not  only  do  all  our  cooking,  but 
earn  money  enough  by  fortune-telling  to  support  us  all.  I 
would  be  expected,  however,  to  greatly  aid  by  my  superior 
knowledge  of  ladies  and  gentlemen ;  and  so  all  would  go 
merrily  on,  with  unlimited  bread  and  cheese,  bacon  and  ale, 
and  tobacco — into  the  blue  away ! 

I  regret  to  say  that  Matthew  expected  to  inherit  the 
donkey. 

About  this  time,  as  all  my  friends  went  hunting  once  or 
twice  a  week,  I  determined  to  do  the  same.  Now,  as  I  had 
never  been  a  good  rider,  and  had  anything  but  an  English 
seat  in  the  saddle,  I  went  to  a  riding-school  and  underwent 
a  thorough  course  both  on  the  pig-skin  and  bare-backed. 
My  teacher,  Mr.  Goodchild,  said  eventually  of  me  that  I  was 
the  only  person  whom  he  had  ever  known  who  had  at  my 
time  of  life  learned  to  ride  well.  But  to  do  this  I  gave 
my  whole  mind  and  soul  to  it ;  and  Goodchild's  standard, 
and  still  more  that  of  his  riding-master,  who  had  been  a 
captain  in  a  cavalry  regiment,  was  very  high.  I  used  to  feel 
quite  as  if  I  were  a  boy  again,  and  one  under  pretty  severe 
discipline  at  that,  when  the  Captain  was  drilling  me.  For 
his  life  he  could  not  treat  his  pupils  otherwise  than  as  re 
cruits.  "  Sit  up  straighter,  sir  !  Do  you  call  that  sitting 
up  ?  That's  not  the  way  to  hold  your  arms  !  Knees  in  ! 


420  MEMOIRS. 

Why,  sir,  when  I  was  learning  to  ride  I  was  made  to  put 
shillings  between  my  knees  and  the  side,  and  if  I  dropped 
one  I  forfeited  it !  " 

Then  in  due  time  came  the  meets,  and  the  fox  and  hare 
hunting,  during  which  I  found  my  way,  I  believe,  into  every 
village  or  nook  for  twenty  miles  round.  By  this  time  I  had 
forgotten  all  my  troubles,  mental  or  physical,  and  after  riding 
six  or  seven  hours  in  a  soft  fog,  would  come  home  the  picture 
of  health. 

I  remember  that  one  very  cold  morning  I  was  riding  alone 
to  the  meet  on  a  monstrous  high  black  horse  which  Good- 
child  had  bought  specially  for  me,  when  I  met  two  gypsy 
women,  full  blood,  selling  wares,  among  them  woollen  mit 
tens — just  what  I  wanted,  for  my  hands  were  almost  frozen 
in  Paris  kids.  The  women  did  not  know  me,  but  I  knew 
them  by  description,  and  great  was  the  amazement  of  one 
when  I  addressed  her  by  name  and  in  Romany. 

"  Pen  a  mandy,  Priscilla  Cooper,  sa  buti  me  sosti  del  tide 
for  adovo  pustini  vashtini?"  (Tell  me,  Priscilla  Cooper, 
how  much  should  I  give  you  for  those  woollen  gloves  ?) 

"  Eighteen  pence,  master."  The  common  price  was 
ninepence. 

"  I  will  not  give  you  eighteen  pence,"  I  replied. 

"  Then  how  much  will  you  give,  master  ? "  asked 
Priscilla. 

'•'•Four  shillings  will  I  give,  and  not  a  penny  less — miri 
pen — you  may  take  it  or  leave  it." 

I  went  off  with  the  gloves,  while  the  women  roared  out 
blessings  in  Romany.  There  was  something  in  the  whole 
style  of  the  gift,  or  the  manner  of  giving  it,  which  was  spe 
cially  gratifying  to  gypsies,  and  the  account  thereof  soon 
spread  far  and  wide  over  the  roads  as  a  beautiful  deed. 

The  fraternity  of  the  roads  is  a  strange  thing.  Once- 
when  I  lived  at  Walton  there  was  an  old  gypsy  woman  named 
Lizzie  Buckland  who  often  camped  near  us.  A  good  and 
winsome  young  lady  named  Lillie  Doering  had  taken  a  lik- 


ENGLAND.  421 

ing  to  the  old  lady,  and  sent  her  a  nice  Christmas  present 
of  clothing,  tea,  &c.,  which  was  sent  to  me  to  give  to  the 
Egyptian  mother.  But  when  I  went  to  seek  her,  she  had 
flown  over  the  hills  and  far  away.  It  made  no  difference.  I 
walked  on  till  I  met  a  perfect  stranger  to  me,  a  woman,  but 
"  evidently  a  traveller."  "  Where  is  old  Liz  ?  "  I  asked. 
"  Somewhere  about  four  miles  beyond  Moulsey."  "  I've  got 
a  present  for  her ;  are  you  going  that  way  ?  "  "  Not  exactly, 
but  I'll  take  it  to  her ;  a  few  miles  don't  signify."  I  learned 
that  it  had  gone  from  hand  to  hand  and  been  safely  delivered. 
It  seems  a  strange  way  to  deliver  valuables,  to  walk  forth  and 
give  them  to  the  first  tramp  whom  you  meet ;  but  I  knew 
my  people. 

I  may  here  say  that  during  this  and  the  previous  winter  I 
had  practised  wood-carving.  In  which,  as  in  studying  Gypsy, 
I  had  certain  ultimate  aims,  which  were  fully  developed  in 
later  years.  I  have  several  times  observed  in  this  record  that 
when  I  get  an  idea  I  cherish  it,  think  it  over,  and  work  it 
up.  Out  of  this  wood-carving  and  repousse  and  the  design 
ing  which  it  involved  I  in  time  developed  ideas  which  led  to 
what  I  may  fairly  call  a  great  result. 

We  remained  at  Brighton  until  February,  when  we  went 
to  London  and  stayed  at  the  Langham  Hotel.  Then  began 
the  London  life  of  visits,  dinners,  and  for  me,  as  usual,  of 
literary  work.  In  those  days  I  began  to  meet  and  know  Pro 
fessor  E.  H.  Palmer,  Walter  Besant,  Walter  H.  Pollock,  and 
many  other  men  of  the  time  of  whom  I  shall  anon  have  more 
to  say.  I  arranged  with  Mr.  Trubner  as  to  the  publication 
of  "  The  English  Gypsies."  I  think  it  was  at  this  time  that 
I  dined  one  evening  at  Sir  Charles  Dilke's,  where  a  droll  in 
cident  took  place.  There  was  present  a  small  Frenchman, 
to  whom  I  had  not  been  introduced,  and  whose  name  there 
fore  I  did  not  know.  After  dinner  in  the  smoking-room  I 
turned  over  with  this  gentleman  a  very  curious  collection  of 
the  works  of  Blake,  which  were  new  to  him.  Finding  that  he 
evidently  knew  something  about  art,  I  explained  to  him  that 


422  MEMOIRS. 

Blake  was  a  very  strange  visionary — that  he  believed  that  the 
spirits  of  the  dead  appeared  to  him,  and  that  he  took  their 
portraits. 

"  C'etait  done  unfou"  remarked  the  Frenchman. 

"  Non,  Monsieur,"  I  replied,  "  he  was  not  a  madman.  He 
was  almost  a  genius.  Indeed,  c'etait  un  D ore  manque''''  (he 
was  all  but  a  Dore). 

There  was  a  roar  of  laughter  from  all  around,  and  I,  inno 
cently  supposing  that  I  had  said  something  clever  unawares, 
laughed  too. 

After  all  had  departed,  and  I  was  smoking  alone  with  Sir 
Charles,  he  said — 

"  Well,  what  did  you  think  of  Dore  ?  " 

"  Dore  ! "  I  replied  astonished,  "  why,  I  never  saw  Dore 
in  all  my  life." 

"  That  was  Dore  to  whom  you  were  talking,"  he  an 
swered. 

"  Ah  !  well,"  was  my  answer,  "  then  it  is  all  right." 

I  suppose  that  Dore  believed  that  I  knew  at  the  time  who 
he  was.  Had  he  been  aware  that  I  did  not  know  who  he  was, 
the  compliment  would  have  seemed  much  stronger. 

I  have  either  been  introduced  to,  conversed  with,  or  been 
well  acquainted  at  one  time  or  another  with  Sir  John  Millais, 
Holman  Hunt,  the  Rossettis,  Frith,  Whistler,  Poynter,  Du 
Maurier,  Charles  Keene,  Boughton,  Hodges,  Tenniel  (who 
set  my  motive  of  "  Ping-Wing,"  as  I  may  say,  to  music  in  a 
cartoon  in  Ptinch),  the  Hon.  John  Collier,  Riviere,  Walter 
Crane,  and  of  course  many  more — or  less — here  and  there  in 
the  club,  or  at  receptions.  Could  I  have  then  foreseen  or 
imagined  that  I  should  ever  become — albeit  in  a  very  humble 
grade — an  artist  myself,  and  that  my  works  on  design  and  the 
minor  arts  would  form  the  principal  portion  of  my  writings 
and  of  my  life's  work.  I  should  assuredly  have  made  a  greater 
specialty  of  such  society.  But  at  this  time  I  could  hardly 
draw,  save  in  very  humble  fashion  indeed,  and  little  dreamed 
that  I  should  execute  for  expensive  works  illustrations  which 


ENGLAND.  423 

would  be  praised  by  my  critics,  as  strangely  happened  to  my 
"  Gypsy  Sorcery."  But  we  never  know  what  may  befall  us. 

"  Oh,  little  did  my  mother  think, 

The  day  she  cradled  me, 
The  lands  that  I  should  travel  in, 

Or  the  sights  that  I  should  see ; 
Or  gae  rovin'  about  wi'  gypsy  carles, 

And  sic  like  companie." 

As  the  Nodes  varies  it.  For  it  actually  came  to  pass  that  a 
very  well-known  man  of  letters,  while  he,  with  the  refined 
politeness  characteristic  of  his  style,  spoke  of  mine  as  "  rig 
marole,"  still  praised  my  pictures. 

In  April  we  went  to  Leamington  to  pay  a  visit  to  a  Mr. 
Field,  where  we  also  met  his  brother,  my  old  friend  Leonard 
Field,  whom  I  had  known  in  Paris  in  1848.  During  this 
journey  we  visited  Kenilworth,  the  town  and  castle  of  War 
wick,  Stratford-on-Avon,  and  all  therewith  connected.  At 
the  Easter  spring-tide,  when  primroses  first  flush  by  running 
waters,  and  there  are  many  long  bright  sunny  days  in  the 
land,  while  birdes'  songs  do  ripple  in  the  aire,  it  is  good 
roaming  or  resting  in  such  a  country,  among  old  castles,  tow 
ers,  and  hamlets  quaint  and  grey.  To  him  who  can  think  and 
feel,  it  is  like  the  reading  of  marvellously  pleasant  old  books, 
some  in  Elizabethan  type,  some  in  earlier  black  letter,  and 
hearing  as  we  read  sweet  music  and  far-distant  chimes.  And 
apropos  of  this,  I  would  remark  that  while  I  was  at  Princeton 
an  idea  fixed  itself  so  firmly  in  my  mind  that  to  this  day  I 
live  on  it  and  act  on  it.  It  is  this : — There  is  a  certain  stage 
to  be  reached  in  reading  and  reflection,  especially  if  it  be 
aided  by  broad  aesthetic  culture  and  science,  when  every 
landscape,  event,  or  human  being  is  or  may  be  to  us  exactly 
the  same  as  a  book.  For  everything  in  this  world  which  can 
be  understood  and  felt  can  be  described,  and  whatever  can 
be  described  may  be  written  and  printed.  For  ordinary 
people,  no  ideas  are  distinct  or  concentrated  or  "  literary " 
till  they  are  in  black  and  white ;  but  the  scholar  or  artist  in 


MEMOIRS. 

•words  puts  thoughts  into  as  clear  a  form  in  his  own  mind. 
Having  deeply  meditated  on  this  idea  for  forty  years,  and 
been  constantly  occupied  in  realising  it,  I  can  say  truly  that 
I  often  compose  or  think  books  or  monographs  which,  though 
not  translated  into  type,  are  as  absolutely  literature  to  me  as 
if  they  were.  There  is  so  much  more  in  this  than  will  at 
first  strike  most  readers,  that  I  can  not  help  dwelling  on  it. 
It  once  happened  to  me  in  Philadelphia,  in  1850,  to  pass  all 
the  year — in  fact,  nearly  two  years — "  in  dusky  city  pent," 
and  during  all  that  time  I  never  got  a  glimpse  of  the  country. 
As  a  director  of  the  Art  Union,  I  was  continually  studying 
pictures,  landscapes  by  great  artists,  and  the  like.  The  sec 
ond  year,  when  I  went  up  into  Pennsylvania,  I  found  that  I 
had  strangely  developed  what  practically  amounted  to  a  kind 
of  pseudophia.  Every  fragment  of  rural  scenery,  every  rustic 
"  bit,"  every  group  of  shrubs  or  weeds,  everything,  in  fact, 
which  recalled  pictures,  or  which  could  itself  be  pictured, 
appeared  to  me  to  be  a  picture  perfectly  executed.  This 
lasted  as  a  vivid  or  real  perception  for  about  a  week,  but  the 
memory  of  it  has  been  in  my  mind  ever  since.  It  was  not  so 
much  the  beautiful  in  all  Nature  which  I  saw,  as  that  in 
Nature  which  was  within  the  power  of  the  skilled  artist  to 
execute.  In  like  manner  the  practised  reflector  and  writer 
reads  books  in  everything  to  a  degree  which  no  other  person 
can  understand.  Wordsworth  attained  this  stage,  and  the 
object  of  the  "  Excursion  "  is  to  teach  it. 

In  the  "  Letters  of  James  Smetham  "  there  is  a  passage 
to  the  effect '  that  he  felt  extremely  happy  among  English 
hedgerows,  and  found  inexhaustible  delight  in  English  birds, 
trees,  flowers,  hills,  and  brooks,  but  could  not  appreciate  his 
little  back-garden  with  a  copper-beech,  a  weeping-ash,  nailed- 
up  rose  trees,  and  twisting  creepers.  After  I  had  made  a 
habit,  till  it  became  a  passion,  of  seeking  decorative  motives, 
strange  and  novel  curves — in  short,  began  to  detect  the 
transcendent  alphabet  or  written  language  of  beauty  and 
mystery  in  every  plant  whatever  (of  which  the  alphabet  may 


ENGLAND. 


425 


be  found  in  the  works  of  Hulme),  I  found  in  every  growth 
of  every  kind,  yes,  in  every  weed,  enough  to  fill  my  soul  with 
both  art  and  poetry ;  I  may  say  specially  in  weeds,  since  in 
them  the  wildest  and  most  graceful  motives  are  more  abun 
dant  than  in  garden  flowers.  Unto  me  now  anything  that 
grows  is,  in  simple  truth,  more  than  what  any  landscape  once 
was.  This  began  in  youth  in  much  reading  of,  and  long  re 
flection  on,  the  signatures,  correspondences,  and  mystical 
fancies  of  the  Paracelsian  writers — especially  of  Gaffarel,  of 
whom  I  have  a  Latin  version  by  me  as  I  write — and  of  late 
years  I  have  carried  its  inspiration  into  decorative  art.  I 
have  said  so  much  of  this  because,  as  this  is  an  autobi 
ography,  I  cannot  omit  from  it  something  which,  unseen  in 
actions,  still  forms  a  predominant  motive  in  my  life.  It  is 
something  which,  while  it  perfectly  embraces  all  landscaping 
or  picture-making  or  dainty  delicate  cataloguing  in  poetry, 
a  la  Morris  at  times,  or  like  the  Squyre  of  Lowe  Degre,  in 
detail,  also  involves  a  far  more  earnest  feeling,  and  one  which 
combines  thought  or  religion  with  emotion,  just  as  a  melody 
which  we  associate  with  a  beautiful  poem  is  worth  more  to  us 
than  one  which  we  do  not.  Burne  Jones  is  a  higher  example 
of  this. 

During  this  season  we  met  at  Mrs.  Inwood  Jones' — who 
was  a  niece  of  Lady  Morgan  and  had  many  interesting  sou 
venirs  of  her  aunt — several  people  of  note,  among  whom  was 
Mme.  Taglioni,  now  a  very  agreeable  and  graceful  though 
naturally  elderly  lady.  I  was  charmed  with  her  many  remi 
niscences  of  well-known  characters,  and  as  I  had  seen  her  as 
well  as  Ellsler  and  all  the  great  ballerine  many  times,  we  had 
many  conferences.  Somebody  said  to  her  one  day,  "  So  you 
know  Mr.  Leland  ?  "  "  Yes,"  replied  Taglioni  in  jest,  "  he 
was  one  of  my  old  lovers."  This  was  reported  to  me,  when 
I  said,  "  I  wish  she  had  told  me  that  thirty  years  sooner." 
In  1846  Taglioni  owned  three  palaces  in  Venice,  one  of  them 
the  Ca'  d'oro,  and  in  1872  she  was  giving  lessons  in  London. 
At  Mrs.  Frank  Hill's  I  made  the  acquaintance  of  the  mar- 


42G  MEMOIRS. 

vellously  clever  Eugene  Sclmyler,  and  at  Mr.  Smalley's  of 
the  equally  amazingly  cheeky  and  gifted  "  Joaquin  "  Miller. 
Somewhere  else  I  met  several  times  another  curious  celebrity 
whom  I  had  known  in  America,  the  Chevalier  Wykoff. 
Though  he  was  almost  the  type  and  proverb  of  an  adven 
turer,  I  confess  that  I  always  liked  him.  He  was  gentle 
manly  and  kind  in  his  manner,  and  agreeable  and  intelligent 
in  conversation.  Though  he  had  been  Fanny  Ellsler's  agent 
or  secretary,  and  written  those  two  curiously  cool  works, 
"  Souvenirs  of  a  Iloving  Diplomatist "  (he  had  been  employed 
by  Palmerston)  and  "  My  Courtship  and  its  Consequences  " 
(in  reference  to  his  having  been  imprisoned  in  Italy  for  at 
tempting  to  carry  oil  an  elderly  heiress),  he  was  also  the 
author  of  a  really  admirable  work  on  the  political  system  of 
the  United  States,  which  any  man  may  read  to  advantage. 
A  century  ago  or  more  he  would  have  been  a  great  man  in 
his  way.  He  knew  everybody.  I  believe  that  as  General 
Tevis  formed  his  bold  ideal  of  life  from  much  reading  of 
condottieri  or  military  adventurers,  and  Robert  Hunt  from 
Cooper's  novels,  so  Wykoff  got  his  inspiration  for  a  career 
from  studying  and  admiring  the  diplomatic  parvenus  of 
Queen  Anne's  time.  These  Boliemiens  de  la  haute  voice, 
who  drew  their  first  motives  from  study,  are  by  far  more 
interesting  and  tolerable  than  those  of  an  illiterate  type. 

One  summer  when  I  Avas  at  Bateman's,  near  Newport, 
with  G.  H.  Boker,  Eobert  Leroy,  and  our  wives,  Leroy  re 
ported  one  day  that  he  had  seen  Wykoff,  Hiram  Fuller,  a 
certain  very  dashing  prima  donna,  and  two  other  notorieties 
sitting  side  by  side  in  a  row  on  the  steps  of  the  Ocean  House. 
I  remarked  that  if  there  had  only  been  with  them  the  devil 
and  Lola  Montez,  the  party  would  have  been  complete. 
Loroy  was  famous  for  his  quaint  mots,  in  which  he  had  a 
counterpart  in  "  Tom  Appleton,"  of  Boston,  whom  I  also 
knew  very  well.  The  Appletoniana  and  Leroyalties  which 
were  current  in  the  Sixties  would  make  a  lively  book. 

I  remember  that  one  evening  at  a  dinner  at  Triibner's  in 


ENGLAND.  4.97 

this  year  there  were  present  M.  Van  der  Weyer,  G.  H.  Lewes, 
and  M.  Delepierre.  I  have  rarely  heard  so  much  good  talk 
in  the  same  time.  Thoughts  so  gay  and  flashes  so  refined, 
such  a  mingling  of  choice  literature,  brilliant  anecdote,  and 
happy  jests,  are  seldom  heard  as  I  heard  them.  Tempi  pas- 
sati! 

Apropos  of  George  II.  Boker  and  Leroy,  I  may  here  re 
mark  that  they  were  both  strikingly  tall  and  distingue  men, 
but  that  when  they  dressed  themselves  for  bass-fishing,  and 
"  put  on  mean  attire,"  they  seemed  to  be  common  fisher-folk. 
One  day,  while  fishing  on  the  rocks,  there  came  up  the  ele 
gant  prima  donna  referred  to,  who,  seeing  that  they  had  very 
fine  lobsters,  ordered  them  to  be  taken  to  the  hotel  for  her. 
"  Can't  do  it,  ma'am,"  answered  Leroy  brusquely ;  "  we  want 
them  for  bait."  The  lady  swept  away  indignantly.  To  her 
succeeded  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  who  did  not  know  them 
personally,  and  who  began  to  put  to  Mr.  Boker  questions  as 
to  his  earnings  and  his  manner  of  life,  to  all  of  which  Mr. 
Boker  replied  with  great  naivete.  Mr.  B.,  however,  had  on 
his  pole  a  silver  reel,  which  had  cost  £30  ($150),  and  at  last 
Mr.  Emerson's  eye  rested  on  that,  and  word  no  more  spoke 
he,  but,  with  a  smile  and  bowing  very  politely,  went  his  road. 
Ultimam  dixit  salutem. 

One  evening  I  was  sitting  in  the  smoking-room  of  the 
Langham  Hotel,  when  an  American  said  to  me,  "  I  hear  that 
Charles  Leland,  who  wrote  '  Breitmann,'  is  staying  here." 
"  Yes,  that  is  true,"  I  replied.  "  Could  you  point  him  out 
to  me?"  asked  the  stranger.  "I  will  do  so  with  pleasure — 
in  fact,  if  you  will  tell  me  your  name,  I  think  I  can  manage 
to  introduce  you."  The  American  was  very  grateful  for  this, 
and  asked  when  it  would  be.  '•'•Now  is  the  time,"  I  said, 
"  for  I  am  he."  On  another  occasion  another  stranger  told 
me,  that  having  heard  that  Mr.  Leland  was  in  the  smoking- 
room,  he  had  come  in  to  see  him,  and  asked  me  to  point  him 
out.  I  pointed  to  myself,  at  which  he  was  much  astonished, 
and  then,  apologetically  and  half  ashamed,  said,  "  Who  do 


428  MEMOIRS. 

you  really  suppose,  of  all  the  men  here  present,  I  had  settled 
on  as  being  you?"  I  could  not  conjecture,  when  he  pointed 
to  a  great  broom-bearded,  broad-shouldered,  jovial,  intemper 
ate,  German-looking  man,  and  said,  "  There  !  I  thought  that 
must  be  the  author  of '  Hans  Brietmann.'  "  Which  suggested 
to  me  the  idea,  "  Does  the  public,  then,  generally  believe  that 
poets  look  like  their  heroes?"  One  can  indeed  imagine 
Longfellow  as  Poor  Henry  of  the  "  Golden  Legend,"  but  few 
would  expect  to  find  the  counterpart  of  Biglow  in  a  Lowell. 
And  yet  this  belief  or  instinct  is  in  every  case  a  great  compli 
ment,  for  it  testifies  that  there  is  that  in  the  poem  which  is 
inspired  by  Nature  and  originality,  and  that  it  is  not  all 
mere  art-work  or  artificial.  And  it  is  true  that  by  some 
strange  law,  name,  body,  and  soul  generally  do  preserve  some 
kind  of  unity  in  the  realm  of  literature.  There  has  never 
been,  as  yet,  a  really  great  Gubbins  or  Podgers  in  poetry,  or 
Boggs  in  romance ;  and  if  literature  has  its  Hogg,  let  it  be 
remembered  that  the  wild  boar  in  all  Northern  sagas  and 
chronicles,  like  the  Eber  in  Germany,  or  the  Wolf,  was  a 
name  of  pride  and  honour,  as  seen  in  Eberstein.  The 
Whistler  of  St.  Leonard's  is  one  of  the  most  eccentric  and 
original  of  Scott's  characters,  and  the  Whistler  of  St.  Luke's, 
or  the  patron  saint  of  painting,  is  in  no  respect  deficient  in 
these  noble  qualifications.  The  Seven  Whistlers  who  fly 
unseen  by  night,  ever  piping  a  wild  nocturne,  are  the  most 
uncanny  of  birds,  while  there  is,  to  my  mind,  something 
absolutely  grotesquely  awful  (as  in  many  of  "  Dreadful  Jem 
my's  "  pictures)  in  the  narration  that  in  ancient  days  the 
immense  army  of  the  Mexican  Indians  marched  forth  to 
battle  all  whistling  in  unison — probably  a  symphony  in 
blood-colour.  Fancy  half  a  million  of  Whistlers  on  the  war 
path,  about  to  do  battle  to  the  death  with  as  many  Ruskins — 
I  mean  red-skins  !  Nomen  est  omen. 

One  of  the  most  charming  persons  whom  I  ever  met  in 
my  life  was  the  Hon.  Mrs.  Caroline  Norton,  and  one  of  the 
most  delightful  dinners  at  which  my  wife  and  I  were  ever 


ENGLAND.  429 

present  was  at  her  house.  As  I  had  been  familiar  with  her 
poems  from  my  boyhood,  I  was  astonished  to  find  her  still  so 
beautiful  and  young — if  my  memory  does  not  deceive  me,  I 
thought  her  far  younger  looking  than  myself.  I  owe  her 
this  compliment,  for  I  can  recall  her  speaking  with  great 
admiration  of  Mrs.  Leland  to  Lord  Houghton  and  "  Bul- 
wer." 

Mrs.  Norton  had  not  only  a  graceful,  fascinating  expres 
sion  of  figure  and  motion,  but  narrated  everything  so  well  as 
to  cast  a  peculiar  life  and  interest  into  the  most  trifling  anec 
dote.  I  remember  one  of  the  latter. 

"  Lord  Houghton,"  she  said,  "  calls  you,  Mr.  Leland,  the 
poet  of  jargons."  (He  indeed  introduced  me  to  all  his  guests 
once  by  this  term.)  "Jargon  is  a  confusion  of  language, 
and  I  have  a  maid  who  lives  in  a  jargon  of  ideas — as  to 
values.  The  other  day  she  broke  to  utter  ruin  an  antique 
vase  " — (I  do  not  accurately  recall  what  the  object  was) — 
"  which  cost  four  hundred  pounds,  and  when  I  said  that  it 
was  such  a  grief  to  me  to  lose  it,  she  replied,  while  weeping, 
'  Oh,  do  not  mind  it,  my  lady ;  Til  buy  you  just  such  an 
other,'  as  if  it  were  worth  tenpence." 

Mrs.  Norton  had  marvellously  beautiful  and  expressive 
eyes,  such  as  one  seldom  meets  thrice  in  a  life.  As  a  harp 
well  played  inspires  tears  or  the  impulse  to  dance,  so  her 
glances  conveyed,  almost  in  the  same  instant,  deep  emotion 
and  exquisite  merriment.  I  remember  that  she  was  much 
amused  with  some  of  my  American  jests  and  reminiscences, 
and  was  always  prompt  to  respond,  eodem  genere.  So  night 
ingale  the  wodewale  answereth. 

During  this  season  in  London  I  met  Thomas  Carlyle. 
Our  mutual  friend,  Moncure  Conway,  had  arranged  that  I 
should  call  on  the  great  writer  at  the  house  of  the  latter  in 
Chelsea.  I  went  there  at  about  eleven  in  the  morning,  and 
when  Mr.  Carlyle  entered  the  room  I  was  amazed — I  may 
say  almost  awed — by  something  which  was  altogether  unex 
pected,  and  this  was  his  extraordinary  likeness  to  my  late 


430  MEMOIRS. 

father.  A  slight  resemblance  to  Carlyle  may  be  seen  in  my 
own  profile,  but  had  he  been  with  my  father,  the  pair  might 
have  passed  for  twins ;  and  in  iron-grey  grimuess  and  the 
never-to-be-convinced  expression  of  the  eyes  they  were  iden 
tity  itself. 

I  can  only  remember  that  for  the  first  twenty  or  thirty 
minutes  Mr.  Carlyle  talked  such  a  lot  of  skimble-skamble 
stuff  and  rubbish,  which  sounded  like  the  very  debris  and 
lees  of  his  "  Latter-Day  Pamphlets,"  that  I  began  to  sus 
pect  that  he  was  quizzing  me,  or  that  this  was  the  manner 
in  which  he  ladled  out  Carlyleism  to  visitors  who  came  to  be 
Carlyled  and  acted  unto.  It  struck  me  as  if  Mr.  Tennyson, 
bored  with  lion-hunting  guests,  had  begun  to  repeat  his 
poetry  to  them  out  of  sheer  sarcasm,  or  as  if  he  felt,  "  Well, 
you've  come  to  see  and  hear  me — a  poet — so  take  your  poetry, 

and  be  d d  to  you  !  "  However,  it  may  be  I  felt  a  coming 

wrath,  and  the  Socratic  demon  or  gypsy  dook,  which  often 
rises  in  me  on  such  occasions,  and  never  deceives  me,  gave 
me  a  strong  premonition  that  there  was  to  be,  if  not  an  ex 
emplary  row,  at  least  a  lively  incident  which  was  to  put  a 
snapped  end  to  this  humbugging. 

It  came  thus.  All  at  once  Mr.  Carlyle  abruptly  asked 
me,  in  a  manner  or  with  an  intonation  which  sounded  to  me 
almost  semi-contemptuous,  "  And  what  kind  of  an  American 
may  you  be?  "  (I  think  he  said  "  will  you  be  ?")  "  German, 
or  Irish,  or  what?" 

To  which  I  replied,  not  over  amiably : — 

"  Since  it  interests  you,  Mr.  Carlyle,  to  know  the  origin 
of  my  family,  I  may  say  that  I  am  descended  from  Henry 
Leland,  whom  the  tradition  declares  to  have  been  a  noted 
Puritan,  and  active  in  the  politics  of  his  time,  and  who  went 
to  America  in  1636." 

To  this  Mr.  Carlyle  replied  : — 

"  I  doubt  whether  any  of  your  family  have  since  been 
equal  to  your  old  Puritan  great-grandfather  "  (or  "  done  any 
thing  to  equal  your  old  Puritan  grandfather  ").  "With  this 


ENGLAND.  431 

something  to  the  effect  that  we  had  done  nothing  in  Amer 
ica  since  Cromwell's  Kevolution,  equal  to  it  in  importance  or 
of  any  importance. 

Then  a  great  rage  came  over  me,  and  I  remember  very 
distinctly  that  there  flashed  through  my  mind  in  a  second 

the  reflection,  "  Now,  if  I  have  to  call  you  a  d d  old  fool 

for  saying  that,  I  will ;  but  I'll  be  even  with  you."  When  as 
quickly  the  following  inspiration  came,  which  I  uttered,  and 
I  suspect  somewhat  energetically  : — 

"  Mr.  Carlyle,  I  think  that  my  brother,  Henry  Leland,  who 
got  the  wound  from  which  he  died  standing  by  my  side  in 
the  war  of  the  rebellion,  fighting  against  slavery,  was  worth 
ten  of  my  old  Puritan  ancestors ;  at  least,  he  died  in  a  ten 
times  better  cause.  "  And  "  (here  my  old  "  Indian  "  was  up 
and  I  let  it  out)  "  allow  me  to  say,  Mr.  Carlyle,  that  I  think 
that  in  all  matters  of  historical  criticism  you  are  principally 
influenced  by  the  merely  melodramatic  and  theatrical." 

Here  Mr.  Carlyle,  looking  utterly  amazed  and  startled, 
though  not  at  all  angry,  said,  for  the  first  time,  in  broad 
Scotch — 

"  Whot's  thot  ye  say  ?  " 

"  I  say,  Mr.  Carlyle,"  I  exclaimed  with  rising  wrath, 
"  that  I  consider  that  in  all  historical  judgments  you  are  in 
fluenced  only  by  the  melodramatic  and  theatrical." 

A  grim  smile  as  of  admiration  came  over  the  stern  old 
face.  Whether  he  really  felt  the  justice  of  the  hit  I  know  not, 
but  he  was  evidently  pleased  at  the  manner  in  which  it  was 
delivered,  and  it  was  with  a  deeply  reflective  and  not  dis 
pleased  air  that  he  replied,  still  in  Scotch — 

"  Na,  na,  I'm  nae  tlwt." 

It  was  the  terrier  who  had  ferociously  attacked  the  lion, 
and  the  lion  was  charmed.  From  that  instant  he  was  courte 
ous,  companionable,  and  affable,  and  talked  as  if  we  had 
been  long  acquainted,  and  as  if  he  liked  me.  It  occurred  to 
me  that  the  resemblance  of  Carlyle  to  my  father  during  the 
row  was  appalling,  the  difference  being  that  my  father  never 


432  MEMOIRS. 

gave  in.  It  would  have  been  an  awful  sight  to  see  and  a 
sound  to  hear  if  the  two  could  have  "  discussed  "  some  sub 
ject  on  which  they  were  equally  informed — say  the  American 
tariff  or  slavery. 

After  a  while  Mr.  Froude  the  historian  came  in,  and  we 
all  went  out  together  for  a  walk  in  the  Park.  Pausing  on 
the  bridge,  Mr.  Carlyle  called  my  attention  to  the  very  rural 
English  character  of  a  part  of  the  scenery  in  the  distance, 
where  a  church-spire  rises  over  ranges  of  tree-tops.  I  ob 
served  that  the  smoke  of  a  gypsy  fire  and  a  tent  by  a  hedge 
was  all  that  was  needed.  Then  we  began  to  talk  about 
gypsies,  and  I  told  Mr.  Carlyle  that  I  could  talk  Romany, 
and  ran  on  with  some  reminiscences,  whereat,  as  I  now  re 
call,  though  I  did  not  note  it  then,  his  amusement  at  or 
interest  in  me  seemed  to  be  much  increased,  as  if  I  had  un 
expectedly  turned  out  to  be  something  a  little  out  of  the 
ordinary  line  of  tourist  interviewers  ;  and  truly  in  those  days 
Romany  ryes  were  not  so  common  as  they  now  are.  Then 
Mr.  Carlyle  himself  told  a  story,  how  his  father — if  I  remem 
ber  rightly — had  once  lent  a  large  sum  to  or  trusted  a  gypsy 
in  some  extraordinary  manner.  It  befell  in  after  days  that 
the  lender  was  himself  in  sore  straits,  when  the  gypsy  took 
him  by  night  to  a  hut,  and  digging  up  or  lifting  the  hard- 
slane  or  hearth-stone,  took  out  a  bag  of  guineas,  which  he 
transferred  to  his  benefactor. 

We  parted,  and  this  was  the  only  time  I  ever  conversed 
with  Mr.  Carlyle,  though  I  saw  him  subsequently  on  more 
than  one  occasion.  He  sent  word  specially  by  Mr.  Conway 
to  me  that  he  would  be  pleased  to  have  me  call  again ;  but 
"  once  bitten  twice  shy,"  and  I  had  not  so  much  enjoyed  my 
call  as  to  wish  to  repeat  it.  But  I  believe  that  what  Mr. 
Carlyle  absolutely  needed  above  all  things  on  earth  was  some 
body  to  put  on  the  gloves  with  him  metaphorically  about 
once  a  day,  and  give  and  take  a  few  thumping  blows  ;  nor  do 
I  believe  that  he  would  have  shrunk  from  a  tussle  a  la  Choc- 
taiv,  with  biting,  gouging,  tomahawk  and  scalper,  for  he  had 


ENGLAND.  433 

an  uncommonly  dour  look  about  the  eyes,  and  must  have 
been  a  magnificent  fighter  when  once  roused.  But  though  I 
had  not  his  vast  genius  nor  wit,  I  had  the  great  advantage  of 
having  often  had  very  severe  differences  with  my  father,  who 
was,  I  believe,  as  much  Carlyled  by  Nature  as  Carlyle  him 
self,  if  not  more  so,  whereas  it  is  morally  impossible  that  the 
Sage  of  Chelsea  could  ever  have  found  any  one  like  himself 
to  train  under.  But  to  Carlyle  people  in  conversation  re 
quires  constant  practice  with  a  master — consuetudine  quoti- 
diana  cum  aliquo  congredi — and  he  had  for  so  long  a  time 
knocked  everybody  down  without  meeting  the  least  resist 
ance,  that  victory  had  palled  upon  him,  and  he  had,  so  to 
speak,  "  vinegared "  on  himself.  With  somebody  to  "  sass 
him  back,"  Carlyle  would  have  been  cured  of  the  dyspepsia, 
and  have  lived  twenty  years  longer. 

Carlyle's  was  and  ever  will  be  one  of  the  greatest  names 
in  English  literature,  and  it  is  very  amusing  to  observe  how 
the  gossip-makers,  who  judge  of  genius  by  tittle-tattle  and 
petty  personal  defects,  have  condemned  him  in  toto  because 
he  was  not  an  angel  to  a  dame  who  was  certainly  a  bit  of  a 
diablesse.  Thus  I  find  in  a  late  very  popular  collection  the 
remark  that — 

"  It  is  curious  to  note  in  the  '  Life  and  Correspondence  of 
Lord  Houghton  '  the  high  estimation  in  which  Carlyle  was 
held  by  him.  His  regard  and  admiration  cannot  but  seem 
exaggerated,  now  that  we  know  so  much  of  the  Chelsea  phi 
losopher's  real  character." 

This  is  quite  the  moral  old  lady,  who  used  to  think  that 
Raphael  was  a  good  painter  "  till  she  read  all  about  that  nasty 
Fornarina." 

There  was  another  hard  old  character  with  whom  I  be 
came  acquainted  in  those  days,  and  one  who,  though  not  a 
Carlyle,  still,  like  him,  exercised  in  a  peculiar  way  a  great  in 
fluence  on  English  literature.  This  was  George  Borrow.  I 
was  in  the  habit  of  reading  a  great  deal  in  the  British  Mu 
seum,  where  he  also  came,  and  there  I  was  introduced  to  him. 


434  MEMOIRS. 

He  was  busy  with  a  venerable-looking  volume  in  old  Irish, 
and  made  the  remark  to  me  that  he  did  not  believe  there  was 
a  man  living  who  could  read  old  Irish  with  ease  (which  I 
now  observe  to  myself  was  "  fished  "  out  of  Sir  "W.  Betham). 
We  discussed  several  gypsy  words  and  phrases.  I  met  him 
in  the  same  place  several  times.  He  was  a  tall,  large,  fine- 
looking  man,  who  must  have  been  handsome  in  his  youth.  I 
knew  at  the  time  in  London  a  Mr.  Kerrison,  who  had  been 
as  a  very  young  man,  probably  in  the  Twenties,  very  intimate 
with  Borrow.  He  told  me  that  one  night  Borrow  acted  very 
wildly,  whooping  and  vociferating  so  as  to  cause  the  police  to 
follow  him,  and  after  a  long  run  led  them  to  the  edge  of  the 
Thames,  "  and  there  they  thought  they  had  him."  But  he 
plunged  boldly  into  the  water  and  swam  in  his  clothes  to  the 
opposite  shore,  and  so  escaped. 

"  For  he  fled  o'er  to  t'other  side, 

And  so  they  could  not  find  him  ; 
He  swam  across  the  flowing  tide, 
And  never  looked  behind  him." 

About  this  time  (1826?)  George  Borrow  published  a 
small  book  of  poems  which  is  now  extremely  rare.  I  have  a 
copy  of  it.  In  it  there  is  a  lyric  in  which,  with  his  usual 
effrontery,  he  describes  a  very  clever,  tall,  handsome,  accom 
plished  man,  who  knows  many  languages  and  who  can  drink 
a  pint  of  rum,  ending  with  the  remark  that  he  himself  was 
this  admirable  person.  As  Heine  was  in  England  at  this 
time,  it  is  not  improbable  that  he  met  with  this  poem ;  but 
in  any  case,  there  is  a  resemblance  between  it  and  one  of  his 
own  in  the  Such  der  Lieder,  which  runs  thus : — 

"  Brave  man,  he  got  me  the  food  I  ate, 
His  kindness  and  care  I  can  never  forget, 
Yet  I  cannot  kiss  him,  though  other  folk  can, 
For  I  myself  am  this  excellent  man ! " 

It  came  to  pass  that  after  a  while  I  wrote  my  book  on 
"  The  English  Gypsies  and  their  Language,"  and  sent  a  note 


ENGLAND.  435 

to  Mr.  Borrow  in  which  I  asked  permission  to  dedicate  it  to 
him.  I  sent  it  to  the  care  of  Mr.  Murray,  who  subsequently 
assured  me  that  Mr.  Borrow  had  actually  received  it.  Now 
Mr.  Borrow  had  written  thirty  years  before  some  sketches 
and  fragments  on  the  same  subject,  which  would,  I  am  very 
certain,  have  remained  unpublished  to  this  day  but  for  me. 
lie  received  my  note  on  Saturday — never  answered  it — and 
on  Monday  morning  advertised  in  all  the  journals  his  own 
forthcoming  work  on  the  same  subject. 

Now,  what  is  sincere  truth  is,  that  when  I  learned  this  I 
laughed.  I  thought  very  little  of  my  own  work,  and  if  Mr. 
Borrow  had  only  told  me  that  it  was  in  the  way  of  his  I 
would  have  withdrawn  it  at  once,  and  that  with  right  good 
will,  for  I  had  so  great  a  respect  for  the  Nestor  of  gypsyism 
that  I  would  have  been  very  glad  to  have  gratified  him  with 
such  a  small  sacrifice.  But  it  was  not  in  him  to  suspect  or 
imagine  so  much  common  decency  in  any  human  heart,  and 
so  he  craftily,  and  to  my  great  delight  and  satisfaction,  "  got 
ahead  "  of  me.  For,  to  tell  the  truth  of  truth,  I  was  pleased 
to  my  soul  that  I  had  caused  him  to  make  and  publish  the 
work. 

I  have  said  too  hastily  that  it  was  written  thirty  years  be 
fore.  What  I  believe  is,  that  Mr.  Borrow  had  by  him  a 
vocabulary,  and  a  few  loose  sketches,  which  he  pitchforked 
together,  but  that  the  book  itself  was  made  and  cemented 
into  one  with  additions  for  the  first  time  after  he  received 
my  note.  He  was  not,  take  him  altogether,  over-scrupulous. 
Sir  Patrick  Colquhoun  told  me  that  once  when  he  was  at 
Constantinople,  Mr.  Borrow  came  there,  and  gave  it  out  that 
he  was  a  marvellous  Oriental  scholar.  But  there  was  great 
scepticism  on  this  subject  at  the  Legation,  and  one  day  at 
the  taUe-d'hote,  where  the  great  writer  and  divers  young 
diplomatists  dined,  two  who  were  seated  on  either  side  of 
Borrow  began  to  talk  in  Arabic,  speaking  to  him,  the  result 
being  that  he  was  obliged  to  confess  that  he  not  only  did  not 
understand  what  they  were  saying,  but  did  not  even  know 


4-36  MEMOIRS. 

what  the  language  was.  Then  he  was  tried  in  Modern 
Greek,  with  the  same  result.  The  truth  was  that  he  knew  a 
great  deal,  but  did  all  in  his  power  to  make  the  world  believe 
it  was  far  more — like  the  African  king,  or  the  English  prime 
minister,  who,  the  longer  his  shirts  were  made,  insisted  on 
having  the  higher  collars,  until  the  former  trailed  on  the 
ground  and  the  latter  rose  above  the  top  of  his  head — "  when 
they  came  home  from  the  .wash  !  " 

What  I  admire  in  Borrow  to  such  a  degree  that  before  it 
his  faults  or  failings  seem  very  trifling,  is  his  absolutely  vigor 
ous,  marvellously  varied  originality,  based  on  direct  familiarity 
with  Nature,  but  guided  and  cultured  by  the  study  of  natural, 
simple  writers,  such  as  Defoe  and  Smollett.  I  think  that  the 
"  interest "  in  or  rather  sympathy  for  gypsies,  in  his  case  as 
in  mine,  came  not  from  their  being  curious  or  dramatic 
beings,  but  because  they  are  so  much  a  part  of  free  life,  of  out- 
of-doors  Nature ;  so  associated  with  sheltered  nooks  among 
rocks  and  trees,  the  hedgerow  and  birds,  river-sides,  and  wild 
roads.  Borrow's  heart  was  large  and  true  as  regarded  Eng 
lish  rural  life ;  there  was  a  place  in  it  for  everything  which 
was  of  the  open  air  and  freshly  beautiful.  He  was  not  a 
view-hunter  of  "bits,"  trained  according  to  Ruskin  and  the 
deliberate  word-painting  of  a  thousand  novels  and  Victorian 
picturesque  poems ;  but  he  often  brings  us  nearer  to  Nature 
than  they  do,  not  by  photography,  but  by  casually  letting 
fall  a  word  or  trait,  by  which  we  realise  not  only  her  form 
but  her  soul.  Herein  he  was  like  Washington  Irving,  who 
gives  us  the  impression  of  a  writer  who  was  deeply  inspired 
with  calm  sweet  sunny  views  of  Nature,  yet  in  whose  writ 
ings  literal  description  is  so  rarely  introduced,  that  it  is  a 
marvel  how  much  the  single  buttercup  lights  up  the  land 
scape  for  a  quarter  of  a  mile,  when  a  thousand  would  pro 
duce  no  effect  whatever.  This  may  have  possibly  been  art 
in  Irving — art  of  the  most  subtle  kind — but  in  Borrow  it  was 
instinct,  and  hardly  intentional.  In  this  respect  he  was  su 
perior  even  to  Whitman. 


ENGLAND. 


437 


And  here  I  would  say,  apropos  of  Carlyle,  Tennyson, 
Irving,  Borrow.  Whitman,  and  some  others  whom  I  have 
met,  that  with  such  men  in  only  one  or  two  interviews,  one 
covers  more  ground  and  establishes  more  intimacy  than  with 
the  great  majority  of  folk  whom  we  meet  and  converse  with 
hundreds  of  times.  Which  fact  has  been  set  forth  bv  Wie- 
land  in  his  work  on  Democritus  or  the  Abderites  so  ingeni 
ously,  as  people  expressed  it  a  century  ago,  or  so  cleverly,  as  we 
now  say,  or  so  sympathetically,  as  an  Italian  would  say,  that 
my  pen  fails  to  utter  the  thoughts  which  arise  in  me  com 
pared  to  what  he  has  written. 

W^hen  the  summer  came,  or  on  the  1st  of  August,  we 
started  on  a  grand  tour  about  England.  First  we  went  to 
Salisbury.  I  was  deeply  interested  in  the  Cathedral  there, 
because  it  is  possibly  the  only  great  Gothic  structure  of  the 
kind  in  Europe  which  was  completed  in  a  single  style  during 
a  single  reign.  Stonehenge  was  to  me  even  more  remarkable, 
because  it  is  more  mysterious.  Its  stupendous  barbarism  or 
archaic  character,  involving  a  whole  lost  cycle  of  ideas,  con 
trasts  so  strangely  with  the  advanced  architectural  skill  dis 
played  in  the  cutting  and  fitting  of  the  vast  blocks,  that  the 
whole  seems  to  be  a  mighty  paradox.  This  was  the  work  of 
many  thousands  of  men — of  very  well  directed  labour  under 
the  supervision  of  architects  who  could  draw  and  measure 
skilfully  with  a  grand  sense  of  proportion  or  symmetry,  who 
had,  however,  not  attained  to  ornament — a  thing  without 
parallel  in  humanity.  This  is  absolutely  bewildering,  as  is 
the  utter  want  of  all  indication  as  to  its  real  purpose.  The 
old  British  tradition  that  the  stones  were  brought  by  magic 
from  Africa,  coupled  with  what  Sir  John  Lubbock  and  others 
declare  as  to  similar  remains  on  the  North  African  coast,  sug 
gest  something,  but  what  that  was  remains  to  be  discovered. 
Men  have,  however,  developed  great  works  of  the  massive  and 
simple  order  in  poetry,  as  well  as  in  architecture.  The  Nibe- 
lungen  Lied  is  a  Stonehenge.  There  are  in  it  only  one  or  two 
similes  or  decorations.  "  Simplicity  is  its  sole  ornament." 


438  MEMOIRS. 

From  Salisbury  we  went  to  Wells.  The  cathedrals  of 
England  form  the  pages  of  a  vast  work  in  which  there  is 
written  the  history  of  a  paradox  or  enigma  as  marvellous  as 
that  of  Stonehenge;  and  it  is  this — that  the  farther  back  we 
go,  even  into  a  really  barbarous  age,  almost  to  the  time  when 
Roman  culture  had  died  and  the  mediaeval  had  not  begun, 
the  more  exquisite  are  the  proportions  of  buildings,  the 
higher  their  tone,  and,  as  in  the  case  of  Early  and  Deco 
rated  English,  the  more  beautiful  their  ornament.  That  is  to 
say,  that  exactly  in  the  time  when,  according  to  all  our  mod 
ern  teaching  and  ideas,  there  should  have  been  no  architec 
tural  art,  it  was  most  admirably  developed,  while,  on  the  con 
trary,  in  this  end  of  the  nineteenth  century,  when  theory, 
criticism,  learning,  and  science  abound,  it  is  in  its  lowest  and 
most  depraved  state,  its  highest  flights  aiming  at  nothing 
better  than  cheap  imitation  of  old  examples.  The  age  which 
produced  the  Romanesque  architecture,  whether  in  northern 
Italy,  along  the  Rhine  as  the  Lombard,  or  in  France  and 
England  as  Norman,  was  extremely  barbarous,  bloody,  and 
illiterate;  and  yet  in  the  noblest  and  grandest  conceptions  of 
architectural  art  it  surpassed  all  the  genius  of  this  our  time 
as  the  sun  surpasses  a  star.  While  we  know  that  man  has 
advanced,  it  still  remains  true  that  the  history  of  archi 
tecture  alone  for  the  past  thousand  years  indicates  a  steady 
retrogression  and  decay  in  art,  a'nd  this  constitutes  the 
stupendous  paradox  to  which  I  have  alluded.  But  Mil 
ton  has  fully  explained  to  us  that  when  the  devils  in  hell 
built  the  first  great  temple  or  palace — Pandemonium — they 
achieved  the  greatest  work  of  architecture  ever  seen ! 

York  Cathedral  made  on  me  a  hundred  times  deeper  and 
more  sympathetic  impression  than  St.  Peter's  of  Rome. 
There  is  a  grandeur  of  unity  and  a  sense  of  a  single  cultus  in 
it  which  the  Renaissance  never  reached  in  anything.  Even 
from  the  days  of  Orcagna  there  is  an  element  of  mixed 
motives  and  incoherence  in  the  best  of  Italian  architecture 
and  sculpture.  It  requires  colour  to  effect  that  which  Nor- 


ENGLAND.  439 

man  or  Gothic  art  could  produce  more  grandly  and  impres 
sively  with  shade  alone.  It  is  the  difference  between  a  gar 
den  and  a  forest.  This  is  shown  in  the  glorious  mediaeval 
grisaille  windows,  in  which  such  art  proves  its  absolute  perfec 
tion.  While  I  was  looking  at  these  in  rapt  admiration,  an 
American  friend  who  did  not  lack  a  certain  degree  of  culture 
asked  me  if  I  did  not  find  in  them  a  great  want  of  colour ! 

I  made  in  York  the  acquaintance  of  a  youth  named  Carr, 
son  of  a  former  high  sheriff,  who,  by  the  way,  showed  us  very 
great  hospitality  whenever  we  visited  the  city.  This  young 
man  had  read  Labarthe  and  other  writers  on  archaeology,  and 
was  enthusiastic  in  finding  relics  of  the  olden  time.  He  took 
me  into  a  great  many  private  houses.  I  visited  every  church, 
and  indeed  saw  far  more  than  do  the  great  majority  of  even 
the  most  inquiring  visitors.  The  Shambles  was  then  and  is 
still  perhaps  one  of  the  most  curious  specimens  of  a  small 
mediaeval  street  in  the  world.  I  felt  as  if  I  could  pass  a  life 
in  the  museum  and  churches,  and  I  did,  in  fact,  years  after, 
remain  there,  very  busy,  for  three  weeks,  sketching  innumer 
able  corbels,  gargoyles,  goblins,  arches,  weather-worn  saints 
and  sinners.  And  in  the  Cathedral  I  found  the  original  of 
the  maid  in  the  garden  a-hanging  out  the  clothes.  She  is  a 
fair  sinner,  and  the  blackbird  is  a  demon  volatile,  who,  hav 
ing  lighted  on  her  shoulder,  snaps  her  by  the  nose  to  get  her 
soul.  The  motive  often  occurs  in  Gothic  sculpture. 

We  may  trace  it  back — vide  the  "  Pharaohs,  Fellahs,  and 
Explorers  "  of  Amelia  B.  Edwards  (whom  I  have  also  met  at 
an  Oriental  Congress) — to  Roman  Harpies  and  the  Egyptian 
Ba,  depicted  in  the  "  Book  of  the  Dead  "  or  the  "  Egyptian 
Bible." 


THE   END. 


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LIFE  OF  SIR  RICHARD  F.  BURTON. 
By  his  Wife,  ISABEL  BURTON.  With  numerous  Portraits,  Illus 
trations,  and  Maps,  and  two  colored  Plates.  In  2  vols.  8vo. 
Cloth,  $12.00. 

The  career  of  the  late  Sir  Richard  F.  Burton,  the  distinguished  traveler, 
and  editor  of  "  The  Arabian  Nights,"  was  perhaps  the  most  adventurous  and 
romantic  of  any  Englishman  of  the  last  generation.  He  was  an  encyclopedic 
scholar,  and  much  more  than  a  scholar.  He  knew  and  had  seen  more  of 
dark  Africa  than  most  men,  and  more  of  Mohammedan  lands  than  any  man. 
It  seemed  a  simple  thing  for  him  to  travel  in  disguise  among  fanatics  where 
discovery  meant  death,  but  his  life  was  many-sided,  and  his  biography  illus 
trates  a  remarkable  variety  of  interests.  Lady  Burton  has  proved  her  literary 
ability  before,  and  in  these  volumes  she  has  done  justice  to  an  exceptional 
opportunity. 

"  Richard  Burton  was  so  fascinating  a  man,  his  virility  was  so  gigantic,  his  intellec 
tual  powers  so  remarkable,  his  activity  so  ceaseless,  his  courage  so  splendid,  his  adven 
tures  so  numerous  and  so  thrilling,  that  his  '  Life  '  can  not  fail  to  partake  of  all  these 
qualities.  No  man  has  ever  been  a  specialist  in  so  many  subjects — soldier,  linguist, 
explorer,  swordsman,  translator,  ethnologist,  politician;  if  he  had  been  only  one  of 
these  his  career  would  have  been  interesting  reading,  and  the  present  work  deals,  of 
course,  with  them  all.  Everybody  will  read  it." — London  Chronicle. 

"  Few  men  of  our  time  have  led  a  more  romantic  and  adventurous  life  than  the  late  Sir 
Richard  F.  Burton.  A  consummate  linguist  and  intrepid  traveler,  without  a  rival  in  his 
varied  knowledge  of  men,  races,  and  religions,  the  hero  of  innumerable  adventures, 
and  of  more  than  one  almost  impossible  undertaking,  Burton  stands  forth  in  these  hum 
drum  days  as  a  rare  and  almost  unique  personality.  No  one  is  so  well  qualified  to  do 
justice  to  his  strange  and  eventful  career  as  his  devoted  wife,  the  sharer  and  inter 
preter  of  his  inmost  thoughts,  his  associate  in  not  a  few  of  his  singular  experiences.  .  .  . 
The  book  presents  a  striking  and  faithful  portrait  of  a  very  remarkable  man  and  a  stir 
ring  record  of  a  very  romantic  career." — London  Times. 

"  The  volumes  abound  in  interest  of  every  sort,  and  they  constitute  an  almost  per 
fect  course  of  modern  geography  and  travel  tor  those  children  of  a  larger  growth  who 
will  insist  on  having  their  knowledge  of  this  kind  in  an  entertaining  form." — London 
Daily  News. 

"  This  remarkable  book  stands  out  in  bold  relief  against  the  monotonous  back 
ground  of  conventional  biography.  Not  even  the  wild,  adventurous  theme  can  account 
for  its  individual  air.  It  is  a  free  lance,  so  to  speak,  departing  from  accepted  models, 
aad  all  the  more  entertaining  in  consequence.  .  .  .  The  descriptions  of  tent  life  are 
deeply  interesting;  the  desert  pictures  will  be  hard  to  match.  The  man  himself  was  as 
interesting  as  anything  he  did,  and  therefore  the  reader  feels  grateful  for  the  informal 
personality  revealed  in  this  memoir.  .  .  .  Maps,  portraits,  and  other  illustrations  ac 
company  this  unique  memorial,  the  true  story  of  a  life  as  marvelous  as  any  of  the 
adventures  depicted  in  '  The  Thousand  and  One  Nights,'  which  he  restored  to  their 
original  character  of  Arabian  romance." — Philadelphia  Ledger. 

"The  greatly  extended  memoir  is  a  deeply  interesting  work,  written  in  a  style 
which  forbids  criticism,  but  delightfully  entertaining,  and  containing  very  little  which 
one  would  wish  to  have  thrown  out.  Reading  these  two  great  volumes  is  living  over 
again  the  campaigns  in  which  Sir  Richard  engaged  and  entering  into  the  adventures 
which  characterized  his  life." — Boston  Herald. 

"  Lady  Burton  has  animation  of  style,  and  she  has  good  command  of  words.  Not 
a  line  that  she  writes  is  dull  reading.  .  .  .  A  stirring,  varied,  and  picturesque  story." — 
New  York  Times. 


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D.  APPLETON  &   CO.'S  PUBLICATIONS. 
A ROUND  AND  ABOUT  SOUTH  AMERICA: 

«*-*  Twenty  Months  of  Quest  and  Query.  By  FRANK  VINCENT, 
author  of  "The  Land  of  the  White  Elephant,"  etc.  With 
Maps,  Plans,  and  54  full-page  Illustrations.  8vo,  xxiv  +  473 
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"South  America,  with  its  civilization,  its  resources,  and  its  charms,  is  being  con 
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us  all  barbarians  is  probably  not  denser  in  his  prejudices  than  most  of  us  are  about  our 
Southern  continent.  We  are  content  not  to  know,  there  seeming  to  be  no  reason  why 
we  sliould.  Fashion  has  not  yet  directed  her  steps  there,  and  there  has  been  nothing 
to  stir  us  out  of  our  lethargy.  .  .  .  Mr.  Vincent  observes  very  carefully,  is  always 
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I 


N  AND  OUT  OF  CENTRAL  AMERICA  •  and 
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Travels   and  Investigations  in   the  "  Middle 
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*TTHE  STORY  OF  MY  LIFE.     By  GEORG  EBERS, 

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etc.     With  Portraits.     i6mo.     Cloth,  $1.25. 

For  many  years  Dr.  Ebers  has  kept  his  hold  upon  the  reading  public  and 
has  strengthened  it  with  every  book.  But  the  personality  of  this  creator  of 
the  romance  of  the  past  has  until  now  been  veiled.  The  author  here  tells  of 
his  student  life  in  Germany,  his  association  with  movements  like  that  for 
the  establishment  of  kindergarten  training,  his  acquaintance  with  men  like 
Froebel  and  the  brothers  Grimm,  his  experiences  in  the  revolutionary 
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as  well  as  personal  interest. 

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ciation  of  the  incidents  of  his  life  that  is  peculiar  to  the  novelist.  Few  of  his  stones 
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ences  which  not  only  molded  his  character,  but  were  potent  in  shaping  the  bent  of  his 
mind."  —  Philadelphia  Evening  Btilletin. 

"  One  of  the  most  delightful  books  which  Georg  Ebers,  the  German  Egyptologist 
and  novelist,  has  written,  and  this  is  saying  a  great  deal.  ...  It  is  the  picture  of  the 
life  of  a  bright,  active,  happy  boy  in  a  German  home  of  the  most  worthy  sort,  and  at 
German  schools  mostly  of  conspicuous  excellence.  There  is  neither  undue  frankness 
nor  superfluous  reticence,  but  the  things  which  one  wishes  to  be  told  are  recorded 
naturally  and  entertainingly."  —  Boston  Congregationalist. 


T 


P 


BRONTES    IN    IRELAND.     By  Ur.  WIL 
LIAM  WRIGHT.     I2mo.     Cloth. 

This  book  presents  a  new  and  thrilling  fage  in  the  family  history  of  the 
Bronte  sisters.  It  tells  of  foundling  and  the  evil  which  he  wrought  to  his 
benefactors  ;  of  an  innocent  child  taken  from  his  family,  whom  he  never 
saw  again,  to  a  life  of  slavery  ;  of  the  Homeric  battles  of  Irit-h  peasantry  ; 
and  it  pictures  Charlotte  Bronte's  uncle  as  he  prepared  a  new  blackthorn 
and  crossed  to  England  to  wreak  Irish  vengeance  upon  a  malicious 
reviewer  of  "  Jane  Eyre."  It  is  a  book  of  absorbing  interest. 

PERSONAL  RECOLLECTIONS   OF    WERNER 

VON  SIEMENS.     Translated  by  W.    C.   COUPLAND.     8vo. 
Cloth. 

In  two  very  different  fields—  the  application  of  heat  and  the  application 
of  electricity  —  Herr  von  Siemens  gained  pre-eminent  distinction  by  his  rare 
combination  of  scientific  insight  and  power  of  practical  utilization  of  his 
knowledge.  It  was  he  —  although  Wheatstone  and  Varley's  discoveries  were 
simultaneous—  who  invented  the  dynamo-electric  machine  which  became  the 
basis  of  the  modern  Siemens-dynamo  developed  by  Edison,  Hopkinson,  and 
others.  He  designed  the  ocean-cable  ship  Faraday  ;  an  electric  railway, 
and  an  electric  furnace  were  among  others  of  his  inventions  ;  and  in  this 
day  of  electrical  progress  the  autobiography  of  this  great  electrician  will 
possess  a  pertinent  and  exceptional  interest. 

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A  N  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  Notes  and  Rtcol- 
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This  work  gives  an  intimate  and  most  entertaining-  series  of  pictures  of 
life  in  Paris  during  the  reigns  of  Louis  Philippe  and  Louis  Napoleon.  It 
contains  personal  reminiscences  of  the  old  Latin  Quarter,  the  Revolution  of 
1848,  the  coup  d'etat,  society,  art,  and  letters  during  the  Second  Empire,  the 
siege  of  Paris,  and  the  reign  of  the  Commune.  The  author  enjoyed  the 
acquaintance  of  most  of  the  celebrities  of  this  time  ;  and  he  describes  Balzac, 
Alfred  de  Mussel,  Sue,  the  elder  Dumas,  Taglioni,  Flaubert,  Auber,  Felicien 
David,  Delacroix,  Horace  Vernet,  Decamps,  Guizot,  Thiers,  and  many 
others,  whose  appearance  in  these  pages  is  the  occasion  for  fresh  and  inter 
esting  anecdotes.  This  work  may  well  be  described  as  a  volume  of  inner 
history  written  from  an  exceptionally  favorable  point  of  view. 

"...  All  questions  of  casuistry  aside,  the  taste  of  civilized  men  for  personal  details 
about  each  other  is  unquestionable.  .  .  .  For  this  reason  alone,  independently  of  its 
literary  merits,  '  An  Englishman  in  Paris  '  will  be  read  all  the  world  over  with  intense 
interest.  .  .  .  With  this  opportunity  for  knowing  men,  women,  and  affairs,  shrewd 
insight,  an  analytical  turn,  an  entire  self-command,  supplemented  by  an  easy,  fluent, 
unpretentious  style  of  telling  things,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  nt  that  the  work  is  one  of 
the  most  interesting  which  has  come  from  the  press  in  a  long  time." — Chicago  Times. 


UW3MV    L<-aLimuu y    \\j   U1C   Idle   lllLCIC^L    ul     UIC    VVUfK,    DilVC|    IJUWCVCr,    UliClUSCU    IIJC    HUU1U1    3 

name.  They  say  it  is  Sir  Richard  Wallace.  ...  A  man  of  mark  Sir  Richard  was  in 
many  other  ways.  No  one  ever  shared  the  friendship  of  great  and  distinguished  men 
and  women  after  his  fashion  without  possessing  talents  and  charm  quite  out  of  the  com 
mon  order.  The  reader  of  these  volumes  will  not  marvel  more  at  the  unfailing  interest 
of  each  page  than  at  the  extraordinary  collection  of  eminent  persons  whom  the  author 


traction  of  the   most  pleasing  conversation.      The  ren 
few  years  before  his  death.   .  .   ." — New  York  Times. 

"  We  have  rarely  happened  upon  more  fascinating  volumes  than  these  Recollec 
tions.  .  .  .  One  good  story  leads  on  to  another;  one  personality  brings  up  reminiscences 
of  another,  and  we  are  hurried  along  in  a  rattle  of  gayety.  .  .  .  We  have  heard  many 
suggestions  Hzarded  as  to  the  anonymous  author  of  these  memoirs.  There  are  not 
above  three  or  four  Englishmen  with  whom  it  would  be  possible  to  identify  him.  We 
doubted  still  until  after  the  middle  of  the  second  volume  we  came  upon  two  or  three 
passages  which  strike  us  as  being  conclusive  circumstantial  evidence.  .  .  .  We  shall 
not  seek  to  stiip  the  mask  from  the  anonymous."— London  'limit. 


New  York  :  D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  i,  3,  &  S  Bond  Street. 


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